#these r lyrics from the album skylight by pinegrove... soundtrack 2 my summer

[betterlving]

skylight.

draw a line in my life. i fly 13 hours across the world curled into a plane seat watching the sun rise and set and rise again, like god is flicking a light switch on and off. i try not to cry as i look out the window and think about best friends, think about laughing together in the morning, at night, at dusk and dawn and always and forever. am i forgetting how it felt?

i don’t remember flying into seattle except the skyline. my heart always beats different on the west coast. my bag comes late, i stand in a security line for 40 minutes, i take three different trains, i pee after holding it for 15 hours. i run through an airport full of bearded hipsters wearing flannel on flights to alaska. i sit on the floor and eat salt and vinegar chips, i board a flight to portland. i haven’t spoken to another human being in over 15 hours. i wear a sweatshirt in the summer and i smell like sweat. yet i love traveling.

isn’t it lovely, i’ll never hold you. i land in portland and smile when i see my family again- the first time i’ve seen the three of them together in over 6 months. we drive through portland and it’s green, greener than i’ve seen in a while. there are bridges over rivers (there are moments of collapse) and the sky is blue, the weather tame- everyone on the streets is tattooed and doing something a hipster would do: drinking beer, walking a dog down the street, reading a book.

i think about los angeles and the never ending sunshine. the dirty streets with flat roofed buildings, about the winding coast and the fog that cools the air in the morning and burns off throughout the day. i think about the sunshine and smiling and blue skies, i think about traffic on the 405 and the 101 and the 5 and the 10. i don’t want to go home. i want to live among pine trees and palm trees where the world seems quieter, calmer, more in a state of peace. i don’t want to have to make another decision ever again and i think if i flew 5 hours every day i wouldn’t mind, i wouldn’t mind living in another dimension.

i think about san diego, about the buildings on the water, about my aunt’s small house in a neighborhood i’ve only visited twice but has always felt like home to me. why i love you enough to say it. sometimes i cry when i listen to certain songs not because they’re sad or because one minute and thirty eight seconds isn’t long enough- just because they remind me so much of the hot sand and the way my heart felt. i love you like it’s the old days- windows down driving north, santa cruz and then san francisco and inside jokes, laughter, the best days on earth. 

what do i have to be nervous for? i visited seattle once. my uncle who is only related to me by marriage has family that live on an island where they grow corn and drink root beer and talk to me like they’ve known me my whole life. i’m on my way, i’m wandering. there is something clear and definitive about the pacific northwest even though i’ve been twice, only in the summer, never in the grey. i don’t know how grey it really gets and though i’m a little too afraid to find out, i sort of want to test the waters.

suddenly i find i’ve got darkness on my mind. the winter bears down over me and this year was anger, this year was so angry. i was angry and i know that’s weak. there was so much longing for something i didn’t have and something that was so far away from me. i wasn’t living up to expectations and i was trying my best but at the end of the day i was a monster, screaming and yelling with no other ways to release my emotions but to be furious all the time. drowning out my sadness with anger. i didn’t want to be hopeless again, didn’t want to lie in bed all day and do nothing but i had hope, i had such big hopes for the future but the future was so far away. 

i smoked weed in the spring. left the door to my basement open and lit up outside, looking at the planes flying by overhead and the green branches tangling the wall. whatever you’re feeling is natural. i smiled more, i made it through to the summer. i flew to connecticut, slept in a hundred degree dorm, made friends, laughed harder than i have in a long time. whatever you’re feeling is alright. i tried not to cry when i left and flew back home, alone, not excited to see my family.

low light at dawn. i fly 13 hours across the world and get off a plane in a country where everything is written in characters that i can’t understand. i hug my best friend for the first time in two years and the next three weeks blend together too fast but they’re what i needed, there’s no way to say that they aren’t. we went to the beach one day. i stood in the water and thought about california all the way across the pacific, thought about the atlantic two hours away from my house, in virginia, not somewhere i think of as home. home is standing in the water in kamakura, in japan, with someone i love. i got this feeling like i’ll always love you. 

but it ends. days later, i drive over a bridge from oregon to washington while the sun sets purple pink orange and then indigo. i sit in the grass while a deer sits two feet away from me, sniffing curiously. mount hood is visible in the distance, the moon a thin white crescent in the sky. when everything turns black and the distance disappears, the stars shine overhead like they’re promising me i’ll be back soon. i haven’t seen the stars in months. leave your light on.