Was it a dream you had?
Somewhere, from an open window, you look down on them in the abandoned lot by the quiet railroad tracks. Sunday afternoon. You don't remember how many; an army of boys and girls. Tanned, thin. Alive. The girls wear shirts with smiley faces on them that reveal supple junior high bellies. They all wear baggy jeans. A girl with an infected naval piercing shares her discman headphones with the girl with braces, and they sing along with the music together, screaming when they come to the obscene parts. One of them, a small boy, the kind who compensates for his stature by being best friends with the girls, rides in in a shopping cart pushed by the others. Someone suggests putting a penny on the tracks. The small boy leaps out of the cart to accomplish this task. The others giggle, both at him for his comical acrobatics, but also with him, because they are being bad. The girls feel a little heat rise in them, and they think dreamily of the Lucky Penny, the empty slate, the erased president. One does a cartwheel. You see the ragged concrete chafe her hands. You see the aqua sky fall to the ground and rise to the heavens again in an instant. You are wild with joy. You are more complete now, in this scene, than you ever will be in your life. All is one and good.You are among friends. You are sick with health. Every molecule is imbued with connectedness to the world outside.You are on the cusp of something.
But you are not them.
You missed it.
