My mom and I would drive through half remembered places
In forgotten times, where people wore their poorly rendered faces
But I remember I was too young to drive
Our Ford Aerostar so I'd stare at humongous skies
And saw where bizarre planets bore storms of gold swells
As we passed the same chain of four-story motels
And I'd nod off to the rhythm of the windshield wipers waving
In the type of violent rain that reforms the coast's shelf
And the rain caught inside the van's faint high beams
Simulated the appearance of engaged light speed
So We'd rupture through the corkscrewed stars in swirled steam
To a tableau that's warped too far, it hurled me
To a selection of planets that intersected at random
So we landed on one that we never meant to abandon
But the air was too toxic for our life support systems
So she jumped back in the cockpit and we traveled more distance
Where the streetlight bulbs were bright stars
Event horizon highways where light parts
Through science fiction doorways where time starts
In the past, no matter how long the drives are
I saw the world refract beyond glass
Of the '94 van in an endless expanse
Saw what the galaxies there had to offer
It's the ballad of the planet hoppers
Stationed on a celestial body but I can't recall its name
We were studying the fauna on the arduous terrain
But when the first drops of caustic rain had sizzled through our cabin
We had to rush back to our ship and leave a teal deluge of acid
We passed abandoned asteroid outposts 'round those cluster belts
And found cold households on the path
We traveled routing Somewhere else
Then we chanced upon a space station orbiting a dwarf star
That acted as our safe haven, soaring through the cold dark
Until the calibration sensors malfunctioned
And pulled the station to a closer orbit and combusted
We were flung into the darkness that transformed into a tree line
A forest out the windows of the van that blurred on each side
Jolted in my little seat that rattled in the Aerostar
I woke to see my mom turn the van in there to park
In front of a house, I was both groggy wide eyed
As she produced a key that glinted like the starry night sky