Creator’s Note: “Southern Paradise” is actually meant to be a song. I haven’t finished writing the melody, but it’s got a folky feel to it. Imagine me with a guitar (if I actually played one) inside a smoky joint, dedicating this song to everybody who has ever loved someone whose dreams were completely different, yet as unattainable, as their own.
Southern Paradise
I wanted you to know that I could never go away from here.
That this was my life, my suffering, my truth.
Anything that was me was also this place.
Even my dreams are me.
But I don’t exist in tropical climates in my dreams.
Only in cold, cynical, sophisticated cities.
Will you reach your destination?
Or will you stay forever within suburban restriction?
Will I make it to my cold, dark city?
I dabbled in your dreams of the ocean meeting the sun
On brilliant summer evenings.
They contained martinis and hot tubs and everything I am not, but wanted to be
For a time.
Your southern paradise is a dream, my friend, as is my city.
They are exploited in magazines and movies; we want them severely.
You should go, though; see for yourself.
Will you reach your destination?
Or will you stay forever within suburban restriction?
Will I make it to my cold, dark city?
But I exploited you, as I know you did me.
My paradise isn’t here, though. It’s always been a fantasy.
Maybe that was the problem, my friend.
Our personal maps of the world are different,
But alike only in that we will never see our paradises
While we are awake.