on a trip

She left last night, took leave. I saw them in the park like a troupe of wild children with their cackling laughs and their bending knees, and their reaching for the sky’s or maybe something higher than sky. As if nature had shown up to teach them something about being alive, suddenly the wind too loud for its own good, the grass to green. But what is even green? They lay in the grass and talk quick about coming and going and how far is far and how near is near. And they glow. They have a certain flourescent to them, and I wish to know me like that someday. I follow them home and listen to a debate about moving through space and the nature of automobiles, and one asks what is even a car? Their questions seem to carry more than the mark at the end. They’re larger than any questions I have ever been asked, and I wonder if perhaps, I haven’t been living enough lately. Inside the apartment I see them trip over their own limbs, longer than before, more sensitive than ever, each with their own ideas of a good time, and yet, one beat, one beating heart for five. I watch from the corner as they discuss and establish parameters and rules, even a democracy, for this minute new civilization in which all five are king. The squirrels in the kitchen write everything down. A hush rolls through the room every now and again or a reflection changes the dimensions of five minutes ago. Some one decides to eat time. What is time even? The very nature of inanimate objects gets called into question. Is a jug a jug or simply a jug? And I get envious watching them slip over laughter and syllables. It gets so simple, of course, why aren’t we always this happy, this funny, this smart? You have to hold your mouth a certain way to talk and for part of the evening the living room becomes a back alley Cuban bar where everyone wears hats, smokes inside and dances to music leaking in from another room. If you commit to the ceiling it will do things for you. Everyone gets quiet and then unquiet and then quiet again. The stars prove to be too much, the outside world an assault on all five senses. I become impatient waiting for them to return to the safe room with the golden ceiling and doors, their very own Sistine Chapel located in Agrabah. Everyone arrives at a definition of what it means to be truly satisfied, to have all of ones needs met, to be made up of nothing but atoms. But you can’t trust atoms. Because they make up everything.