“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

There’s a sudden strange magic that happens when one is enveloped in living, and technology is suddenly an empty threat at the end of a corridor. Living on my way to Austin and back was that miracle, and this blog was forgotten in the grandeur of what life could be, the unimaginably expansive hope. I felt the touch of others so fully alive that their very breath upon my set me to breathing, their very closeness brought me to the orgasmic future without the head stocks of time. For a moment in time, I was real.

It began with a petty road trip wrought with the nerves of one who just wanted to be alive again, and one who was haunted by what lay in wait at the end of the days. Two set off in the lust of a God-given bond that surpassed the gloom of how much weight rested upon them. Reminiscing times before their own lives, with Marilyn Monroe on their eyes and Thelma and Louise on their hearts, the fights were bearable because the road was unfolding and would become so much more.

It took two days to get to Austin. A stop in Dallas on the way provided solace for the one who had been there before, but continued the high-wrought nerves in its lack of kindness to their bagged eyes. Loping to the car one last time, the two made it-I in a half dream state. The entry itself was naught but another city like so many, but what would reveal so much more was the life inside. 

Appearing before me was a vision of two I had only seen in the dreams given to me by the constant bombardment in other worlds. They were like pixies, living the fullness of life, caught in the illustrious being of the now. Even their names departed from a world I had never known. Juliet and Bjorn showed us into a house that Monroe must have lived in, if not Hepburn herself. 

We spent days within those walls, languid in the moments of being alive in a dream. Breathing the solid air scented with God’s presence mixed with all the dreams that one could have, like living and God could coexist without crushing each other out of existence. In those moments, we were alive, but I was not yet breathing, just gasping for air out of the life support of friends I held dear.