i want to hop a train
to panama, sleep through mexico
and live in a house
with no shoes and three kids
and make blankets
and sell oranges
and sit on the curb.

i could learn to dance
and dye my hair and be beautiful again,
i'd grow brown in the sun
i'd grow like a flower in the sun
and i'd open up
and pick my teeth
in the kitchen,
rub my hands with avocados
and wear white.

i never wear white
but if i lived in panama
i would wear white.

i want to hop a train
to california and see my aunt again,
borrow that one record
and listen to it on repeat
for the rest of my life,
live in the ocean or a bathtub maybe
and write letters to the people
that miss(ed) me in soap.

i'll laugh at their memory
while the water drips
as a necklace down the side
of the claw feet and porcelain.

i could drink coffee
at the ice cream shop
and go to high school
with my cousin,
eating magic brownies with the fuck-ups
and watching the palm trees move
outside the window.

i want to hop a train
and forget everyone,
wash my hair in the rain
and lean my head against the cargo.
all i need are my cigarettes,
some matches and a copy
of anna karenina
and i'll be fine.

the train goes by my house
every night at 10 p.m., 2 a.m.
and 5 a.m. and every night
for the last three years
my house has been shaken
with the sound of change,

slowly fading into the light
of the impending city.