Suburbs, 1994

It was a grown thing to be well-versed in dark nights, seeking streets flushed with neon lights
We didn’t know what such wandering meant, but we wanted it
As childhood fell away from us, like a slipping knife 

We couldn't quiet pierce the stillness of the suburbs without being bad
And though we had walked out those doors a thousand times,
We hoped each time to find a different knowing, to quench our growing sorrow;
We wanted to become wise, with open eyes,
As the stars spilled light like water from a colander,
And we were tired of being dry

The streetlamp on the corner was unconstrained by any cover, free to send its light skyward and onto one another,
Those beams may in fact still be going on, in endless space, unrestrained
They felt like us with our growing lusts 

But on the asphalt, the light only glared with suspicion, as if we could not trust any darkness,
As if wolves or dark creatures hid within the shadows of the woods behind your house  

We were still children, after all
And afraid
And still, like Ophelia, we longed some dark swamp to find,
Some bit of secrecy to embrace, enough to sate the sorrow of empty bellies and hands which shook with their longing and their demand
To be full
To silence the voices that said, "be good"
And to find some truer selves, rising like the moon 

All this we sensed, though there were no words for it
Longing is nothing but a pulsing in the brain until it finds some sound to frame its name
And whatever we sensed was interrupted, anyway, as two streets down, 
A car careened in unrestrained rebellion, bucking loose,
A teenager, no doubt, cutting tooth 

We did not even have the age yet to be ironic: 
The screaming of the tires did not seem pathetic,
It seemed wild
A big black dog tearing at its chain
A dog howling out its name

All while
The trees swung likes books of revelation,
The evening swooned
The leaves just budding on the branches
The night just awake beneath the waxing moon