leaving Hot Springs

Remember the backseat
of that shitty Chevette?
your brothers at the helm
cruising, wandering
the girls, the banter
Slippery When Wet
courtesy of custom speakers
I had no idea
the dreams, the thoughts
that would be drilled into me
How many girls that I see now
were conceived to those songs?
Don't get me wrong
Livin' on a Prayer still has a special place
in my rock and roll heart
but it got shoved to the quaint department
Very Proud of Ya
Stranger than Fiction, Samiam's Clumsy
they all did their part
to bury the old albums
We all choose our songs
and mine are sad and angry
That doesn't take away the time
staring out backseat windows
trying to break the code
that older boys and girls speak
Outside Evans Plunge
is that when I first felt
the vagabond curse
the wildness that always returns?
Here I am today
so pitifully removed
hoping for a taste
of that overworked stereo
sweet night air
chlorine and bubble gum

Twenty years it took me
to go back there
and drink that water
breathe that sterilized air
What an odd revelation
to find myself so unfit
unable to relate
You know those places haven't changed
the town still smells the same
as when I dug for fossils after school
The same angry sun
still bakes the ground
but my eyes can't focus anymore

Mourn if you must
it was taken from you, after all
No one ever loved this place more than you
Funny
how a girl robbed you of this
Fitting
I suppose
but the story lays still
in the red mud that cakes your feet
down by Fall River
where the dragonflies still couple
where your boyhood tumbles away from you
in that Chautauqua water.