Philadelphia

two hours north of the nation's capital, i took a break from what would be my final days in a prison of my own making to see a friend who had said, "hey come on over," a favorite band, and an ex-lover's ex-lover. and ryan said that he liked my company, so i didn't leave that night and stuck around for his birthday. we rode out to the tops of the oil cans, to a pool in the woods and i jumped in... perpetually lost and so i made my way across the zip codes, sold tapes to the smaller distros, learned cliches of the drifter's ethos. learned addiction to new faces: the pros and cons of being place-less. and my friends seemed stuck. but i didn't know what to say, so i addressed the Chorus and asked each voice individually. they all said "i'm doing this for my parents, i wish i had other choices. it's not really what i want, but i can't stand to be a disapointment." and i wanted to say how at the end of the day you're just accountable to your memories. and if you can't lament what might have been... you'll never be a disapointment. but i couldn't find the words somehow, wrote down the names of the college towns, and waved out the window as the dots on the map passed by. and ryan said that he liked my company, and though i know i never told him, well it really meant a lot to me, and i said i'd make a point to always stop on by. and i know that i don't, but i think about it every time that the greyhound glides past philadelphia. and then the greyhound cries for philadelphia.