Let's Leave

Let's leave this place we grew our skin

Where we breathed the brink of the ocean

They say it's too stagnant here

They tell us we must feed our mind

New languages

Or we will become stiff and sink

In the places we once called home

Let's go to the mountains

And snap photos of their tips

They say they steal your breath

I tell them, so does gasoline

But it's not the same because one moves you

And the other kills you

Maybe I can learn which is which.

Let's go to the lake, then

And whisper love stories into its waters

They say we can start anew

And let the rivers wash our scars

I say some of them are stitched with rose petals

They tell me they don't matter

And that starting fresh never hurt -

Maybe it just numbs.

Let's go to the big city

And buy Styrofoamed coffee

So we'll be invisible

And scurry down subway steps

And lie that we lost track of time

They say the city will be our teacher

I wonder if time was ever meant to be tracked

Before we gave it hands and twelve numbers

Maybe it's just an obsession.

Let's wander the edges of horizons

And get on planes - we'll learn to fly

Before our feet become glued to the ground

Let's pack one bag and leave this place

We can't stay where we grew our skin

Let's listen to the tongues of the corners of the earth

And see the moon from different skies

So we can prove that our minds

Are beyond the oceans that raised us

They say we will be stagnant here

So let's not get too attached

To the sea around our summer waist

Or the gazebos where we kissed.

I don't want to become stiff and sink into familiar soils

That's what they say will happen.

But maybe they’re called roots for a reason -

Maybe we need to sink in somewhere before we can grow.

There’s a fine line between stagnation

And stability.

One does not equal the other

So let's leave this place we grew our skin,

Only for a short time.

We can reminisce our glory days,

And then we can find that line.