New York

There was this lighted mirror in the bathroom, 
in a hotel in New York... — it made elegant, swanky uptown, fractured reflections in ochre yellow 
- as I lay in bed between the twinkling lights of the bridge and buildings and “vibes” on the other side. 

And all the big, rude, loud city that you like 
had quieted finally...with the music playing in just the right low echo with grip. 

It was the first time I’d breathed easy, 
and strange, in too many nights. 

So maybe there’s something here after all. 
With a new you and me... but mostly the me. 
Mostly all the brand new tonight I can see and fall asleep to. It's the phrase we're always saying when all your plans are with new spirits, new souls, 
and every time you check it - there's messages waiting on your phone. 

Thought I'd closed the door and left adventures behind 
but it was just a pause -- just a subway delay 
-- just an old me that I left far behind and gone. New York, the place I never wanted to be --  
but all the times I'm here has meant something. 
The force of the noise and the dreams of strangers - hits. 
The place that filled every college "when I get there" by my friends, as I listened, and thought of other things..sometimes you wind up where you never planned. 
After all the work, 
the moves, 
the miles and the messing up. 
Really made a new version of myself that I like the most. 
Like the colors of the life back home, the textures and the other city pace of it..

By tonight I'll be home again - coming home tired and full of art made 
- when home is new and right all along. 
Looking up at the grand scale of the train station, with a laugh. 
Wonder what tonight, and next week, 
and every next strange trip will bring. 

. . .

The old burning

Let the hills keep burning cause I don’t know you anymore. Let that precious, strange, desert place where the rolling cuts off every background -- slide off. 
And so you creep, and you make, and you let the land take you over. You let yourself disappear so no one even knows. 

All that mess and mourn, I don’t yearn for it anymore. All that buzzing television on repeat; like a retro moving spin top -- playing scenes. 
Playing sounds so different here - we press mute on all the noise and turn volumes up to what we feel. 
Or so we say, and smile, and answer professionally to what we do. 

It’s metal concrete shiny ways, so it feels a world away. Worlds away and all around the changing grasses of our changing forgottens. 

. . .