1993

So we sent ourselves into our secret exiles ten or so years ago and lived chaste and Christ-like for days, because that was expected and the truth should’ve set them free like it did us, pieces and shades of monochromatic guilt slowly peeling as we shed our tears, and we hated, and we laughed, because life was becoming clearer and our feelings and hearts felt real like they never were before, undying and fleshy, squeezable and pained, while we enjoyed the wet weather beneath crumpled sheets.

The stacks of paper beckoned, while Bavarian cream donuts substituted real food, but there was no money to explain, no questions to play tricks, no thanks to daylight savings time that evolved into daily power failures, and so the lights were out and it was a gift that I was there when school was out and politics seemed simpler, and everything was strange, exciting, smiling in the dark, and no words were needed to buy understanding, or joy, since we lived for the moment, exploring worlds in small rooms, creating them with magic tools, like fools with their magic medication that snapped, crackled, popped their brain cells like bright white milk on pancakes with butter, warm and sweet, plunging in deep and too flustered to dwell on the details as they were happening.

The scenes have changed like we have, like sets of interlocking toy bricks connecting other lives with mine, and yours, which creates this weird community, a bigger picture that demands connecting, overlapping photographs, because the lens can only capture so much, and the bigger picture seems to keep expanding, but, but, but, through it all, through the whirling and the chafing, the beautiful faces and the angry fits, there was, there is, that glowing trust, that inside joke, that secret smile, that special code word, that stolen glance, an inner peace, an excellent thought, a wondrous flight, an enduring touch, a pair of souls that met, that recognized each other, that knew how the future works.