What to say. It's 3:30am. I should be sleeping. I have far too much rolling around in my head. I have the strangest sensation of wanting to just pack up and go somewhere.
77 degrees. Streetlight outside and a halo of fluttering creatures drawn to the light. My slumbering gardenia bush. Catch-me-if-you-can front yard but watch out for the hill, you could fall down, scrape a knee or two.
In the window next to me sits myself, typing just like I am. Only my other me is in the sleeping gardenia bush, balanced lightly on top, hovering in midair.
Let's go on a trip. Find some roadside restaurant, meet a waitress named Jackie who has blonde hair piled high and calls us, "Sweetie." Watch as she pulls a pen from her hair somewhere, cocks her hip ready to write. Order the special with fries and talk about Life and Love and how you can't separate the two.
Hit the road - no maps - just plenty of conversation and a book that shows you where all those awful tourists traps are; let's go see the big ball of rubber bands. I'll roll down my window, turn on the oldies station and stick my hand outside, feel the currents, pretend it's an airplane. We're in slow motion, this is where the rain could start and then we're through that patch and looking behind to see how very dark, look how dark is that sky.
Stop by some ocean for a brisk swim, get the sand all over everything, in our sandwiches, in our ears. Just for one day though, I don't want to have to use too much aloe lotion. I burn easily and not just literally. Stick around for the sunset and I would tell you a story about the time when my sister and I swam out to a big boat full of men who catch fish for a living. Big, burly men with loud voices, real, working hard, strong.
We stood chest high in the water, watching them pull in thousands of fish with their nets, while we shrieked as the fish that escaped tickled our legs. Let's pretend we're mermaids, let's pretend we're looking for our dolphin friends, let's pretend.
How we waved to our mother on the beach. And she's calling us in, it's time for her to check us, rub us down with lotion again, smooth our faces with mother hands, and are you hungry? We should've kept waving, she died a few months later. And now I'm aching.
I look at mirrors, watch them change while I stay the same. Our scenery is lovely, I try to take it all in. Play my game where I see how long I can keep counting white dashes. They're like train cars, you have to stay ahead of them or you'll lose track.
It's my time to drive now, you sit back. I'll drive in the dark, lights on, music low, empty roads that will start to call us home.