the rain has stopped for now and kids run along the dock with their arms out as though they are flying

you have a bike but it doesn’t have brakes so you use your foot you press your foot to the spinning rubber of the back wheel you press the rubber of your shoe to the rubber of the rear wheel to slow you to stop you when you ride your bike.

you have a bike but your mom is always fucked up and your dad is around but also isn’t and your bike doesn’t have brakes so you wear down your shoe and wear down your tire so that when you ride your bike you can slow and you can stop.

your friends have bikes and their bikes have brakes so they don’t need to use their foot use their shoe to slow to stop their bikes.

their parents also get fucked up but in different ways and to different degrees and you all are friends because you are all very different but also you are all very much the same.

your mom always gets fucked up and your shoes wear faster than she can replace them and when she comes home blind drunk and swinging a baseball bat or a long serrated knife you yell at her while scattering and your friends laugh while scattering and they get to leave back to their homes but you have to eventually go back.

most of the time your mom is soon asleep after screaming and swinging a knife or a bat so you can also go to sleep.

your friends come over and you all get high together and your friends go through your cupboards and pantry and ask to eat all your food and you say no because that’s all the food you have and they tease you and pretend they are going to eat it but never eat more than maybe a bite or two because they know that really it is all your food.

sometimes other people come over who are sort of friends but don’t know you so well and they get high and they look through your cupboards and pantry and they ask to eat all your food and you say no but they do it anyway. sometimes when this happens your other friends are there your friends who know this really is all your food and they wrestle with the one who is really eating more than a bite or two of your food to try to get them to stop. and it’s laughing and it’s fun and it stops with the laughing and it stops with the fun and sometimes someone gets the shit kicked out of them.

and sometimes that person isn’t you and isn’t one of your friends and is one of your sort of friends and they do not come back to your house again.

your mom sometimes sees your friends in the borrowed truck that one of them drives, the borrowed Chevy pickup that’s owned by your friend’s dad and your two friends are in the bench seat of the Chevy pickup truck and your mom sees them and she is blind drunk and gets in front of the car while they are trying to drive and she won’t let them go.

she yells and she laughs and cars and other trucks stack up behind the borrowed Chevy truck of your friend and your friends don’t really quite know what to do to get your mom to move so they laugh and they smile and they inch forward in the truck and like an everyday small and commonplace miracle your mom skews eventually out of the way.

your shoe wears down too quickly from using it as a brake to slow to stop your bike and the rain gets in through the worn away part of your shoe and your sock is always wet and your foot starts to develop sores.

you and your friends all get fucked up and you walk with a bit of a limp on account of the sore on your foot from the sock that is always wet from the rain from the worn away condition of your shoe.

your mom buys you special drinks that you only drink before your football games during the football season because they are engineered and designed to give you energy.

the special drinks come in a glass bottle and your friends come over and you all get high and inevitably one or all of your friends ask you if they can drink your special drink in the glass bottle that you only drink before your football game. you say no and they ask again and you say no and they grab it and you yell ‘no! that’s for before the football game!’. and you all play football and even are all on the same team and your friends know that if they drink this drink you really won’t have another so maybe they hit you on the shoulder or the arm but still they do not twist the cap and do not drink your special drink.

your dad is around but is never around and when he dies you don’t really care and your mom always gets fucked up and then gets sober and does that for a while and then gets fucked up again.

you drop out of school just a few weeks before graduation and you lift your way through weightier and weightier drugs.

you and your friends still get high but none of you really feel so much high and all of you mostly feel increasingly weighed down.

some of your friends leave to go to college or to go to another town. some of your friends stay in the same town as you but you do not spend time together like you once did.

you yourself leave your town and you yourself leave yourself and one of your friends who also left town you both years later meet up when you happen to both be in the same town and you are friends and you are kin and you are strangers.

you both want to love each other and so you both love each other but it feels as though you speak your love to each other in different languages.

you live on couches and you live in cars and you live in parks and you live in wind. you live inside of those who love you just as those you love live where they live and also live within you.

you have died a thousand times and been born a thousand times more. you are in the wind and the wind is in everything. you are in nothing and nothing is where everything comes from.

nothing is where everything goes.