I have never been intrigue by the lines of a city – only by the fact that other people are.
I look at where I live –
the place where famous books are not set
because we don't have an acronym like NYC for Seattle –
and see trees cropping up between buildings
and I think that is the secret.

Our city is broken; our lines are crossed
so that everyone who comes here sees immediately how wrong our city is
without even taking a breath of our air.
Because to take a breath would be admitting that normal people can live here
and in the minds of others, I guess,
that's not something of concrete (with no trees) fact.

Band posters cover our telephone poles,
which I sometimes imagine are alive because they bleed right into our
trees which smear our cities into our
forests and those blur the lines between
states and home,
if you know what I mean.
/.../But the posters are for big things and nothings
and I sometimes think that people
who don't want to breathe our air shouldn't listen to our music
and mourn Kurt Cobain
(who I have never been impressed with, anyway,
to be honest, because if you want to be heard
you should speak so I understand you)
because that's demeaning and rude
and if they're so mad about us not having an acronym
or having broken lines
then they should write their own songs for once.

Quit looking at us to be who you wish you could be.

Bikes are between all the cars and their wheels spin at traffic lights
because here people actually ride them
unlike in "N-Y-C" where I didn't see a single one,
but I probably saw a million lines and no trees.
Which I think is selfish of them.

But here we have more than six bus routes because we care,
even though our air is so funky and we have trees between our houses
so that maybe we can rest our eyes sometimes,
which I think is more important than being assaulted by ads all day long
and not even caring because you're so self-involved
that it all goes right to your head because you've never learned to see with your
--eyes-
much less your
--ears-
because of those ear buds you use to drown out the "city noises"
which you wouldn't need to do
if you had trees to listen to every once in a while.

And in Seattle we do not have white beaches,
because rocky ones are the better kind –
the Hamptons can stuff it because they've got nothing on our tide pools –
and they are even nice in the winter
when you can just live in .grey.grey.grey.
and not worry about sand dunes.

Here you pay five dollars for a good concert
but in NYC you shell out just for a slice of pizza
and before you know it, there you are, broke,
and you don't care about trees any more than you used to.
/.../This place I live in has
broken lines and it has
broken hearts in it
but it is not a broken city and I know that that's what matters

when it comes to state lines and homes
because they are not the same,
they are both defined so well these days,
but you can not define my home
when I have a forest in my backyard
and you have never seen an evergreen tree.