the plane lands.

I hold hope close to my chest 
but my anticipation of the “Tree City” is met instead, with intrigue.
clouds, absent
sky, vast
and hills... fake.
trees, Fake.
everything feels much, much, bigger. 
You see, living in Hawai’i for two-thirds of your life will distort reality
I expect cool winds and dense clouds and crisp rain
but I am smacked not by cloud tears but by news of drought

when I moved here, the nature seemed artificial
every trunk of too-green leaved trees held together by man made rope,
forcing it to stand up straight and root itself within a 2x4 foot patch of dreams;
a public jail cell.
the squirrels rustling in a tangle of wooden vines, digging holes in gray dirt to shut themselves out-- to escape.

and the heat.
every summer day Mother Nature had a fever
her dry cough a lingering breath on the back of my neck
an unwanted kiss.

I confuse buildings with houses
banks cleverly disguise themselves as cabins,
painted with wooden steps and hefty roofs.
Costco, with its clever use of the brown and red color family,
burgundy painted slabs and roasted wood shingles
yelling, “Hey, come in! We’re all family!”
except we’re not. it’s never been that way.

its semblance of a home tries to make up for the fact that its never felt like one.
the nature, the architecture, the people, its all forced.
it’s all a cry for help.

this town, this made-believe, this fairy tale called San Ramon.
its a Barbie dream house.
everything here is for show.
the clouds, they’re a little too white; a spill of white gouache
the sky, too blue and empty it’s strange to me that I can’t see black.
because its so clear and unobstructed that I expect to see space
but I cant.

the two-dimensional hills; complete with pixels of cows grazing on the depthless flap of a popup book
the scenery; a screenshot of the old default Windows background
if I see a cursor move around, then at least i’d know where I am
because knowing you’re stuck is better than being trapped.

but this highly functioning utopia has its hiccups
glitches in a well-oiled machine
and these moments keep me alive,
they keep me curious as to what’s out there.

I don’t know much about you, Tree City.
but I know I want to learn more.