"You Punkass Popo Bitches!" -Carl "CJ" Johnson, San Andreas, 1992-
I used to love this place. But what defines that? Did I really love this place or did I make it out to be the best thing in the world just because it was the finale before school started up again. This place is a joke. The streets look exactly the same, but they get darker and scarier every year. False hope pulls me back, along with my family. I don't fit in here. I'm the criminal of the family and there's no turning back now.
This place stuggles to be fun. But under the thin coating of a few arcades and a couple of bars I can't even go into, the adventure ends. I'm always more excited to get back to my safe, suburban familiar home town. The place where I cannot be touched. But not here. Here is only regret. From the first moment my father dipped me into the slime green substance known as the Atlantic Ocean in the first summer of my life, to this final moment where I sit, tied to my laptop clutching a bottle, asking Captain Morgan to help me forget tonight's unsavory string of events.
-Have fun on the beach with my pail and shovel.
|Hot, sweaty, alone.
-Talk to everyone on the beach with laughter.
|The big kids want me to go away.
-Get a little older and go out at night.
|Walk everywhere and go nowhere.
-Bring a friend.
|Realize it only brings out the worst in both of us.
-Get laid with the help of Israel.
|Find out they were demons.
-Get a car.
|Drive everywhere and go nowhere.
-Go to the club.
|Feel out of place and intimidated.
-Think I'm not doing anything wrong.
|Get arrested.
I hate calling anything the last straw. I hate quitting. But in some cases, we realize that what we were looking for was never really here. I wanted to conquer this town. This whole island. I wanted to transform into a high roller on my summer vacation, and turn the experience into something worthy of the title Grand Theft Auto: Long Beach Island. But childhood fantasies are put into check at some point in our lives. In a resort made entirely of ice cream and rent-a-cops, the dark side quickly outweighs any type of reward. Like a high school crush, or a long-worked job, I'm finally realizing that LBI and I were never meant to be.
This place stuggles to be fun. But under the thin coating of a few arcades and a couple of bars I can't even go into, the adventure ends. I'm always more excited to get back to my safe, suburban familiar home town. The place where I cannot be touched. But not here. Here is only regret. From the first moment my father dipped me into the slime green substance known as the Atlantic Ocean in the first summer of my life, to this final moment where I sit, tied to my laptop clutching a bottle, asking Captain Morgan to help me forget tonight's unsavory string of events.
-Have fun on the beach with my pail and shovel.
|Hot, sweaty, alone.
-Talk to everyone on the beach with laughter.
|The big kids want me to go away.
-Get a little older and go out at night.
|Walk everywhere and go nowhere.
-Bring a friend.
|Realize it only brings out the worst in both of us.
-Get laid with the help of Israel.
|Find out they were demons.
-Get a car.
|Drive everywhere and go nowhere.
-Go to the club.
|Feel out of place and intimidated.
-Think I'm not doing anything wrong.
|Get arrested.
I hate calling anything the last straw. I hate quitting. But in some cases, we realize that what we were looking for was never really here. I wanted to conquer this town. This whole island. I wanted to transform into a high roller on my summer vacation, and turn the experience into something worthy of the title Grand Theft Auto: Long Beach Island. But childhood fantasies are put into check at some point in our lives. In a resort made entirely of ice cream and rent-a-cops, the dark side quickly outweighs any type of reward. Like a high school crush, or a long-worked job, I'm finally realizing that LBI and I were never meant to be.