Old Flames XX: Fireworksmoke

We rode to the fireworks, but just barely missed them. We dodged traffic to catch the tail-end of the grand finale. We loitered around long enough to catch the shallow follow-up show they did out of guilt. For a brief moment in America, all I could see was a firework show and a stop sign. Wasn't that America?

Wasn't that life, missing the big show to catch the smaller, shorter show that leads to wanting more? Isn't that what summertime bike rides are for? Aren't we just trying to find the kids we grew up with?

That was the panic attack under the streetlight. That was the explosion that we heard within our rattling bodies. We heard the aches of the years. We heard the wearing of bones. We heard the exhaustion of thought. But it wasn't enough. We rode on.

We rode through neighborhoods, suburbia, love, lawlessness, hope, rage, beauty and war. We sailed through the years with ease, curving our wrists over the passing of time, just a smooth drift through the purple, blue and white of time travel. Just another light show to walk through. Just another late night dive that nobody can get enough of.

This was the beginning of the end. It was the end of the beginning. All of this was never meant to be, but it was unstoppable.

Truly, we waited for it as it swallowed us whole. Time mangled our bodies and made our minds better. But it hurt. We don't know what to wait for now, and maybe that's the problem.

Maybe the problem isn't that we need to make it to the tracks. Maybe the problem is that we aren't sure what station it is.