Is that lightning or is a streetlight going out? It doesn’t matter; it will rain here soon anyway. I coast down the hill on the slippery sidewalk. The lights of Portland off in the distance, as if lightning bugs swarmed. Sprinklers automatic drench my right shoes and drown my good mood. Snails, sans shells, clutter the sidewalk, blending in with the gray. The flash of light off their dampened hides is the only indication of their presence. I hop and skip mid-stride to avoid ending their night. Kids in cars tear up the hill. I am a silhouette-man, made from headlight racing, softly shaking. Pull my hood string quick and cause my hair to slide down over the tops of my eyes like bundled straw tied tight and twitching with the wind. I step off the walk for a second into the wet grass and instantly I’m back. Dashing through ditches at night. Legs running and shoes muddy. Friends laughing. Returning home. Starting over. Unpacking. Erasing. I remember our self-made kick-the-can-like games. Something to pass the time as nocturnal beings with no other purpose than to live. Throw a bottle filled with rocks. Try to reach the parking lot or the steps to the co-op. It’s all in how you use your arm. And to the winner, throw your hands in the air. The streetlight is your spotlight. The cracked sidewalk is your red carpet. A beaten down Oldsmobile is your limousine. A victory lap past the hardware store, library, ending at the edge of town - where the lights glow behind you but the darkened cornfields stretch on forever. Highway 20. Spray paint. The high beams from the drop off car watch our bodies, clad in black-as-night clothing, disappear over the top of the ditch. Spits gravel and heads for the truck stop, the turn-around point. Duck and turn off the flashlight when cars drive by. We’ll mark the highway rock tonight. We’ll leave our names for passersby. Black for the letters. White for the background.

Poised, ready to fall on the concrete curb. Yellow meets gray meets forever down the road. Pull your collar up. Pull it closer to your cheek; you can hide inside the thick wool folds. Sure, you could go inside. It’s warmer in the entryway. But inside is sterile - an empty white room to go with your empty white face. You’ve surrounded yourself with your need to be alone. You’re perfecting the art of apathy; your victories and losses are all the same. Leaning up against the corner, you start to wonder if you’re unhappy or just bored. So stay out here in the cold with me; this robot still wants to bleed. Did Aaron finally find his keys? I’m tired of waiting - of dealing in fractions. A quarter past three and we’re not even halfway there. The long walk home doesn’t seem so impossible as the minutes melt away - they drip like wax from roofs. They bless the ground and collect in pools. I’ll run like a drunken fool through the streets, shouting at the highest window and dormers, proclaiming my mad possession for the night. “Awake, you fools! It is tonight, and this night is perfect; we can’t waste it on sleep!” Convincing them, and myself. I wink and smile at little old ladies peeking from behind musty curtains and tattered blinds. A leaf picked from a weary and unsuspecting tree could serve as testament to this night. Folded neatly between the pages of a sophomore journal, it will be my proof. I slip up the stairs and into my cold white cell. Arctic blue read the bucket. Arctic it is. Forceful footsteps from a floor below. Youth has come to claim this home after a night of forgetting. Shouts across the room come through the cracks of my floor like flowers bloom. Affected force and pretentious threats. She’s curled up on the couch wrapped in her favorite blanket. Laying there, silent, with the fabric pulled up to her rosy cheek. She’ll be surprised to find a locked door when she sneaks up to my room. Ladybugs chatter against the ceiling. Bouncing across corners, making their way towards the light. My window rattles with every opening and closing door in the house. Eight rooms, connected. The moon creeps into the frame of my window. A few days short of full, but intrepid regardless. The birds are singing their hymn, but it’s no lullaby they sing for me. Stomps on the stair step. She’s getting closer. I wish the light were off, I could feign sleep. Too late now, I suppose - the rays of light have already climbed atop my face. We’ll deal the best we can.

I shut the creaky car door. I scuffed my shoes against pebble and cement - strode toward the night-time bench. Stared up...the moon looked cracked and broken when sitting under mangled crooked oak tree arms. Strands, strings, from the bottom of weathered jeans trailed behind like chains. The wind took the cracked torn leaves and led them safely across the street. Wondering what conversations pass through the telephone wires - hung like cobwebs between all these bare trees. Covering ears with dusty hands when trains rolled through. Cars of coal, they drudge and groan, moaned their tales of other towns they’ve seen that sleep just like ours. Tire scrapes on yellow curbs as kids in cars pulled up and hung from windows they put down when racing into town. The driver had ignored the darkened fields and raced with headlight guides as the others reached up towards the sky; they had to close their eyes. Outstretched arms and spread wide fingers reaching for the endless sky and space. A doe passed through yellow pools of growing light and jumped a barbed wire fence. A mile away, awake in bed, an old man checked his pocket watch, growled low, spit and coughed. Riding a pogo stick from the train tracks to city hall. Waving sweetly at a car when you don’t mean it at all. Filling soda cans with gray-laced cigarettes. Coughing loud, halfway faking the sound, hoping your script will convince a friend to quit. A tin can rolls and hits the curb. The wind laughed hard; it was he that pushed him. A plane light flashes on and off as someone inside flips a page on their book. A black cat runs across the street and slips into the dark alley that runs behind the video store and where they write the town paper. The kittens pounce and rip the mouse their mother caught by the church. A point and click picture - highlighted eight figures - legs and arms crossed or littering the sidewalk. Leaning back on the 6th Street bench or scribbling notes on a gas station receipt. Toes curling up underneath feet as the moon must have been frozen. For the last night in a row we packed up boxes and rented apartments to head out in this lonely world alone. A book bag never filled with books, Ennis, MCrea and a Naked Lunch. A worn box filled with black snake wires that connect to various electrical devices. Andy and Red rolled up on paper, ticket stubs and pictures of winter. An answering machine used a year ago still has old messages from people that are gone. “Give me a call when you get off work. You're leaving in two weeks, we should really hang out.” The lamp that I use to light up my face when sitting at the keyboard and typing away. A pocket watch with cold dead hands that I’d like to fix to click again. Forks, knives and paper plates. Black slacks, white shirt and tie just in case I get a job or meet a girl. Stressing and fretting over packing my things, I seem to forget what you can’t put in a box… The smile that forms on your face from the car as you pull up to the grocery story and see how much your brother has grown that year you’ve been away from town. The driveway stained from oil and paint. The extension cord asleep on the floor, half in the sun - half in the shade. The heat baked him a vibrant orange. White chips of paint strewn across your face. They stick from sweat and hold their place. Drip to your shirt and stain your legs. The cold biting air you breathe in through your nostrils, when sitting and shivering in the icy football stands. The stadium lights are enough to light every face, but won’t bring you heat as your teeth chatter chatter. The smell of grass mixed with gas and sweat. Pushing up hills with your tired fists clenched around the handle of the green mower that spits and growls as you walk around your lawn in circles. The heat that you feel from your hand against hers as you cautiously nervously sway not quite in time with the music. A rhythm you made up on your own with shaky knees and eyes on the floor. I turned my back to the moon and he followed me right out of town. Awkward smiles all around but I thought I saw, buried behind that stoic face, a smile from months ago. Under layers and layers of days and weeks of living our own lives on sunny beaches and wet mountain country.

Did you get the directions? I think I know the way (Not that lack of direction has ever stopped us before). A midnight maze of grinding gravel and we’re there. Twinkling radio towers on the horizon remind us of the outside world. Let them have their world, tonight we have ours. Four empty walls - save for the beat up dusty couch in the corner, this room is empty. Something is amiss. You can feel the despair. It smells like loneliness. You can still hear, through the ceiling, the sound of tears. And through the floor echo shivers of a cold, cold memory. But this sorrow cannot last for long; we’re taking over. The paint-chipped screen door has little remorse. This old house, surrounded on all sides by empty fields and dork cold night, is now ours. Cut behind the rolled down window - open truck door, stalks of dry corn. He squints his eyes that peer through open window light, shifts his boot to kick the dirt. He sees the spark of youth that occupies the place he used to sit at night under low lit TV glare with playing cards and tired stares. Things are looking up inside. This house is starting to breathe. It's beginning to remember the sound of laughter, the feel of thankful feet, the brazen recklessness of youth - it's so alive. We drink to the cries of the stereo that's playing low and loud. Someday, far from now, we will hear this song and, in a mad fit of nostalgia, remember. Thinking back to that time so long ago, we will smile. Tonight, we are living. For we know, our lives are a book and our thoughts are the ink. To know that we are writing every word - what could ever be more hopeful? This is starting to get out of hand. The icebox bathtub is drawing to a close. Holes left in the bedroom wall will not look nearly as cool by daylight. I step outside, to breathe some real air for a change, and I am welcomed with a cloud of hanging smoke. As much as I hate it, though, there's something appallingly refreshing about it. It smells like so many memories - times I've now forgotten. A young girl is in tears on the porch, cell phone dangling from her shaking hand. Countless miles away, but not without the power to ruin a night. I want to tell her to smile, but I'm afraid I would be misinterpreted. "Listen, kid, I start, not sure where I'm going, "I know it feels hopeless sometimes, but believe me, the sun always rises. I know the questions are burning, I know they keep you awake. But, please, please, have faith. I'm not sure whether it's her or me that I'm trying to convince. I speak of hope and providence - I've completely forgotten that I'm saying this out loud. "The truth you seek is seeking you too," I tell her, "it's blowing in the trees at night, riding on the wind. It's just waiting for the right time to drift through your window." The roar of an engine snaps me out of my trance, and I realize my chariot home is escaping. I jump the porch railing, negotiating across thorny shrubs, sprinting towards the car. The ride home is solemn. I need to sleep. We've run out of words. There will be more in the morning. I cut the lights and coast in on neutral. I wouldn't want to wake the neighbors. My bed is calling. And I, for once, have an answer. I remained like a statue, weathered and faded, needing retouching and a new coat of gray paint. On that couch with my arms on the arms and my legs on the floor. They all sat next to me at some point in the night, asked if I missed her and told me sternly why I shouldn't. I smiled and showed my teeth as I lied that memories don't spring forth or speak of warm fall nights that play continuous on my movie reel mind. With distance, she decided at her phone, then put it down.

Perched on a cold metal washing machine across from the bright-lit vanity. Sunflowers grow and bloom from the wall paper in this dark black room. A voice shouts out "Hello?" from the thick wooden oak door. "Is anyone home?" They're not alone as shoes pile up on the doormat - as engines die and legs run up the front steps. A loud thud, bending noise from the washing machine as I brace myself, slide off. My finger, the marker - the parter of pages that die to be read. A '63 classic and slightly romantic. In the kitchen a face appears and shines, smiles. He'd like a drink of water. The wooden front door with a face of glass is opened, closed, opened again as shouting voices spouting off their big plans, acting out the day's events like a sidewalk show in a big town we've never been to. Motioning hands and sock-covered feet start to resemble a Grant Wood painting hung above the dining room table. It was fastened up high by my mother with twigs that curl around the black trim frame and hang. Red berries cover some of the farmer's faces. We sit, the twelve of us, collected at this dining room table to discuss the matters at hand, like what are the plans for the night? And nobody (or at least just me) says that they'd rather just go to bed. Chair legs screeched every time you heard the phone ring. So repetition leads us to the gas station to fill ourselves with salt and sugar. We'd viddied every horror film they've got. So maybe get the one with the giant alligator. The windshield wipers turned on as...... The sky spit rain upon the roof of the house. It was so dark, that we never saw it coming down. The moonlight shone through every drop, along with car headlights parked. Created falling water white like a falling star assault on our little house.