On the East side of Lake Parker, crossing the monstrous Memorial Boulevard, entangled with telephone poles and lines, and train tracks, It's like Japan. You can see in the distance ahead the even more monstrous tanks of power plants, a pale white rising out of the waves of water combed white and black.
I used to bike there, just to feel the feeling of being trapped. The cars, trucks, sometimes a train go by, and there's noise everywhere. Once you cross over, though, it's the ranch on your right, and salt marshes on the left. Cow and grass, fish and water. Nothing could feel more Polk County, nothing more Florida. I'd just wander, keep cycling. Not going anywhere. It's like being along the beach, nothing happens. The sun's lazy, palms too, even the senior homes. And then I'm struck again by my grandmother and grandfather. And my Hakah friends who lived under the sun, who laughed freely by the ocean, who taught me what youth meant. And my heart would hurt.
Sometimes, I want to leave places. I want to leave myself.
I want to find something, or more correctly, I want to have something found. Maybe that something, is myself. I think they call that homesick.
On the West side of Lake Parker is Lake Shore Drive, a turn away from the hectic Memorial Boulevard. It's always the Memorial Boulevard. There's nothing memorial about it, only car fuse. There's nothing like Lake Shore Drive, a quiet winding stretch with a few abandoned docks, another senior home, sometimes I wonder if people built houses there, have children, who grow up, leave, and never come back. So it feels abandoned. I used to live off of Lake Shore Drive, and purposefully go home an hour later than work each day so I could be there around sunset. Around that summer, I heard a song, and kept playing it in my computer, in my head. It's Innocence Mission's Lake Shore Drive:
I'm going down to Lake Shore Drive
I think I see your face
Now I'm looking for you every place
yes I, yes I, yes I am.
yes I, yes I, yes I am.
Sometimes I'd ride back and forth, back and forth until dusk turns dark, and the monstrous power plant is covered up finally, and only sparkling lights can be seen across the lake waters. Sometimes the riding back and forth, back and forth, feels like Norman Bowker in Things They Carried, except I was not a war veteran, and I couldn't go around in circles because the bike route is cut off both on the north end and south end. It's atrocious the things they do, the government, they who pay no attention to how a lake is split into two and a bicycle can't figure out how to act. Bicycle can never abandon the lake, the thought of crossing the lake never leaves bicycle's mind. Then it could maybe find itself a home on an imaginary island in the middle of the lake; it'd never grow old or leave for anywhere else.
I used to bike there, just to feel the feeling of being trapped. The cars, trucks, sometimes a train go by, and there's noise everywhere. Once you cross over, though, it's the ranch on your right, and salt marshes on the left. Cow and grass, fish and water. Nothing could feel more Polk County, nothing more Florida. I'd just wander, keep cycling. Not going anywhere. It's like being along the beach, nothing happens. The sun's lazy, palms too, even the senior homes. And then I'm struck again by my grandmother and grandfather. And my Hakah friends who lived under the sun, who laughed freely by the ocean, who taught me what youth meant. And my heart would hurt.
Sometimes, I want to leave places. I want to leave myself.
I want to find something, or more correctly, I want to have something found. Maybe that something, is myself. I think they call that homesick.
On the West side of Lake Parker is Lake Shore Drive, a turn away from the hectic Memorial Boulevard. It's always the Memorial Boulevard. There's nothing memorial about it, only car fuse. There's nothing like Lake Shore Drive, a quiet winding stretch with a few abandoned docks, another senior home, sometimes I wonder if people built houses there, have children, who grow up, leave, and never come back. So it feels abandoned. I used to live off of Lake Shore Drive, and purposefully go home an hour later than work each day so I could be there around sunset. Around that summer, I heard a song, and kept playing it in my computer, in my head. It's Innocence Mission's Lake Shore Drive:
I'm going down to Lake Shore Drive
I think I see your face
Now I'm looking for you every place
yes I, yes I, yes I am.
yes I, yes I, yes I am.
Sometimes I'd ride back and forth, back and forth until dusk turns dark, and the monstrous power plant is covered up finally, and only sparkling lights can be seen across the lake waters. Sometimes the riding back and forth, back and forth, feels like Norman Bowker in Things They Carried, except I was not a war veteran, and I couldn't go around in circles because the bike route is cut off both on the north end and south end. It's atrocious the things they do, the government, they who pay no attention to how a lake is split into two and a bicycle can't figure out how to act. Bicycle can never abandon the lake, the thought of crossing the lake never leaves bicycle's mind. Then it could maybe find itself a home on an imaginary island in the middle of the lake; it'd never grow old or leave for anywhere else.
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