Listening to the Shins in San Diego
Almost twenty years later
on the East Coast
with the Shins
on in your headphones
you think:
I’d go back there
I’d relive that…
even though
you know you were miserable:
the dishes stacking up in the sink
leaving an emotional message
on your not-really-anymore girlfriend’s machine
saying no to invites
tired all the time
and sitting outside a café with a friend
telling him how depressed you were
but still
there was the Shins
and there was Belle and Sebastian
and the beautiful Southern California neighborhoods
to take walks around
and there was that morning:
the morning when there was a glimmer
of life beyond your depression —
I think the medicine was finally
starting to work —
you were up early
and white pieces of something like snow
were falling from the sky in the warm breeze
you put out your hand and caught one
and you could see from the vein lines
that it was a tiny piece of leaf;
it was ash
of vegetation burning somewhere
and the sky would turn red
but that early morning with ash
falling from the sky
something lifted within you.
written April 2023