Seattle is in ruins, underwater
and twenty-five hundred miles away
there are water towers, grain elevators,
a dirty river and me.
And in the cubicle where I spend my days
(trying to forget how my life is slipping away)
hangs a postcard of Seattle, under the sea:
an artist's rendition.
It's real to me.
The days aren't any more or less mundane,
that aspect, at least, seems never to change.
Life is a series of days you wish would end
to get to the next one
and the next one
and then
you die, I guess, that's all there is
(but there's a million miles between that life and this.)
And I try to think of things that have changed
but my mind goes in circles
(there's too much and too little)
I was crazy then but now I'm sane -
or was that the other way around?
I was lost but now am found?
No, I was found but now am lost;
I always knew there'd be a cost
and I've paid it double in tears I've cried
(but that would have happened either way.)
Did you know in Seattle it's always July?
but the Space Needle's fallen over
and the Monorail's underwater
and the calendar says it's February
yeah, it's definitely February outside.
So I guess I'm seven months from Seattle
and the months go by faster and faster
like a train building speed heading straight for disaster
which I can't comprehend
and I guess, in the end
it won't even matter.
I miss the fish tacos at Taco Del Mar
I miss the Fremont bridge troll
Thai fast food and that salty sea smell
I miss walking the sidewalks at night
(I don't think I'm remembering things right.)
It never rained in Seattle
because it doesn't rain in July
and I never used to sit alone
in my dorm room and cry
in the dark under the broken light.
These things never happened. Never.
At least, these are not the things I remember.
And I'm trying to think of things that have changed
but the important things just stay the same:
I'm always just me; I'm always alive
(but I used to walk everywhere and now I drive)
I'm always afraid of strangers and friends
I'm always alone and I'm always on edge
(but I used to take classes and now I don't care
I used to take pills and now I'm just scared
it used to be summer but now it's frozen and bare.)
Because it's February outside.
It's February everywhere.
I'm seven months from Seattle
a city that drove me insane
and I never was able to figure out
why all I want is to go back there again.
But everything's underwater
it has been since July
and I can't even swim, but I could go back
I could try
I could leave this all behind
I could, but I would drown
and die.
But I get along fine, I say,
because every crystal moment of every endless day
is nothing more and nothing less than an empty shade of okay.
This isn't tragedy.
It's just the giant tapestry
of moments woven into days and hung for all to see
shows something less and something more than where I want to be.
And these are all illusions,
my memories are fantasies.
I didn't really want to stay.
And who am I kidding?
I never liked Taco Del Mar
and I never went to Fremont anyway.
But sometimes I see Toledo
melting away to the ground;
buildings sinking into the swampland
that they drained to build this town.
And I see myself standing all alone,
the faces around me distorted and dead.
Sometimes I can almost touch them.
Sometimes it's not just in my head.
And I'm seven months from Seattle;
there's nothing left for me, here or there,
and it's February in my mind.
It's February everywhere.
æ 2/21/05