When you, the outsider,
visits the quaint town of Stars Hollow,
the first thing your eyes see
are the people: they are the kind of strange
you'd expect to see in a sprawling, industrial city
full of blinding lights and bustling action and whirling smog and man-made glitz.
but here, you see, there's an authenticity in the way
people dress with styles so far out of season, they've come back in season
and even with the way people walk,
as if they've got nowhere to be,
Where taking the scenic route is practically the
same as the main road but
including the gazebo, affected by the seasons.
This place radiates enthusiasm, with the same
overbearing excitement that the big city has to offer
without the threat of smog or the overwhelming swift pace;
there's a buzz of cheerful vitality fluttering around every nook and cranny,
as if the air in the town sits in everyone's lungs with a kind of lightness
that equates to warmth and joy (without the saccharine aftertaste
that can't be washed down with coffee).
In Stars Hollow, identity shapes surroundings,
and your footprint leaves a mark forever.
Light and energy
colorful and youthful,
restores that spring in your step
you thought you lost in baggage claim
but here you are:
Stars Hollow, a bouquet of flowers
blooming vivid and strong
in your ribcage and crickets singing,
the sun eroding the sugar in your tea
and the clouds holding hands with the grass,
you feel transported to another universe
parallel with everything you've known but
different enough that Stars Hollow feels like its
very own dimension, unlike anything you could fathom:
your body cycles from rotting to healing,
melting to freezing,
liquifying to solidifying,
and you can't quite take note of
why colors seem more saturated,
requiring sunglasses at all times when buddying up with the sun
Whose rays seem sharper, more intense.
Stars Hollow once erased itself from your map,
but it reappeared once you admitted you wanted to be more than a tourist.