With the Windows Rolled Down

I just want to love you

With the windows rolled down

Nobody ever parks anymore

Nobody ever wants to just--

Probably because in movies

People are always getting murdered

While they’re making out in a car

But here--

Here’s Paradise

Tucked away behind a mountain

Right at the base of the sea

With just enough asphalt

To make you remember civilization

Enough to put down four wheels

And leave it in park

I want to put my arm around you

I want the leather interior

To stick to my skin

I want songs from 1997

To change the air around us

We’ll never have a time machine

Because if we ever did

We’d already be using it

Going back so we don’t need songs

To make us feel younger than we really are

But without a time machine

We’ll have to use the music

And the rolled down windows

And the snacks I keep

In my backseat

I want to love you

Like we’re thirty years

Ahead of ourselves

Old and married

And dying next to each other

I want to see how long it takes

Before our hair smells like the waves

And I guess…

I guess at some point

We’ll have to see

What’s on the other side

Of the mountain

But I bet there’s cities

And city blocks

And small apartments

With reasonable rent

And no air conditioning

I’m not sure who I’d be

Mixed up in all that

Here, I know what I am

I’m somebody with a beat-up car

And a beat-up life

Getting lungfuls of ocean breath

And sand so light

It might as well be dust

I’d love dinner out here

Sitting around a fire

Covered up in blanket

I keep in the trunk

Asleep before you know you’re asleep

Satisfied before you know you’re satisfied

Older before you want to be older

In love and suspended

Between rock and water

Between four wheels

And a hundred thousand miles

Of restlessness

With the windows rolled down

I can hear something far off

Somebody laughing

Somebody playing a guitar

Somebody telling something

To somebody else

I want to hear

What they have to say

But for some reason

I turn up the radio

The radio

God, when was the last time

You listened to the radio?

Songs, songs, songs

And we know half the words

And all of the music

I hear you singing along

Under your breath

With your eyes closed

Like you’re casting a spell

I close my eyes too

The music gets louder

The waves get softer

The asphalt melts away

Into the sand

And the air is a time machine

It’s a chance to go back

To go somewhere

But who knows…

Who knows where?