You Can't Take it With You (Hello from Jersey,Wish I Were There.)

A poem written while traversing the great and much missed state of New Jersey. I miss it already.
I.
I grew up
with the dust of the Northeast Corridor
reflecting grandeur of a thousand untold locations in my eyes.
Rocked to sleep by the rhythms of the rails and
the voice of John Francis Scotti mumbling the eternal grace of a God he knew so well last night.
Words like Secacus, Piscataway, Metuchen
lilting like a lullaby from the voice
of a conductor who can otherwise only say "Yo-
How youse guys doin?"
I can barely hear the distant whistle
of the 10:19 to Jersey City
over the hum of my friend's first Fender strat,
shaking the garage with a fury and a fire
that we'd never know again in the years to come.
And we swore, taking a drag from a stolen cigarette,
we promised over a sip of forbidden, forgotten whiskey
We swore one day we'd get out.

II.
My heart soars over the Meadowlands,
turning wasteland into wonder,
Springsteen was my neighbor, when I was just a girl,
singing songs about the places I knew, the places I'd been
and Jungle Land and Thunder Road weren't just names on a sign.
They were real, and so were we, and unlike Bon Jovi's hair,
we swore we'd never stick around.
And I grew up, and washed the dust of the Northeast Corridor from my hands.
Rumbling once again,
by the Raritan river and the Atlantic Ocean stretching out,
the squish of oil-slicked sand
and the random smell of family vacations fresh on my mind,
looking out over the places I once knew,
and the world that once was mine,
the infinite world within a world of the Pine Barrens,
and the lore of the Jersey Devil hot on my tails,
worse than my conscience, nattling around in my skull.

III.
The sounds have changed - ain't no more Springsteen at the Stone Pony,
ain't no more rumble of the 10:19 to Trenton.
And with the Gaslight humming, singing songs of loss and heartache,
I can't believe I'm standing here again, in all the places I knew and loved,
all the places I shunned and scorned in favor of a "better life."
I was one of the few who got out, for every one like me, more and more still try.
It hurts to say it now, I couldn't feel it anywhere else,
and I'm homesick before the Silverliner ever pulls out of the station.
It kills me to admit it -
I'm home.