Time Stood Still At the Drive-In
I was at the drive-in
with two of my good friends.
We were watching the latest new
freak-show of a movie,
trying to figure out
the psychologically twisted plotline.
Needing to give my eyes and my mind a rest,
I turned my head to the right of me,
when time stood still.
The gravel on the ground
grew great under the grandeur of the sky,
almost meeting the horizon
with its coarse soul.
The clouds in the night air
were a dull purple, perfectly blending
the heavenly host and the city below
into a smear of forgotten nonsense
that hovered over everything
and made its second existence
on the gravelly parking lot below.
Scattered
around the perimeter of the area
were knee-high garden lights
radiating with a blue-white hue
that made them seem like
stationary orbs of hope,
only meant to be encountered
in small doses,
because such happiness all at once
isn’t supposed to happen in this world.
Limbo?
The place where
everything stops,
and for one second,
you can think forever,
let your mind wander
without worrying about
what you want and where you were
and who you are.
You can remember the past,
change the past,
change the present,
see the future
all between the height of your aspirations
and the pit of reality.
A place where you can relive
every relationship you’ve ever had,
the bad ones that make the good ones
that much more beautiful.
You see the music that you’ve heard your whole life,
except now you see it floating in the air,
making melodies and humming harmonies in the soft wind.
In the distance, you see
one point;
it’s a crossroads, an intersection;
the horizontal axis is
everything you could ever hope for in this life,
and the vertical axis is
everything that can ever interrupt that hope,
and you can’t help but feel that where you’re at
is where you’re supposed to be at that time.
You feel in control of so little,
and you feel overwhelmed by so much,
that the only thing you know you can safely do
to alleviate that heavy pressure in your lungs
is breathe,
in long, slow huhs,
and think about where you go from here.
I was at the drive-in,
and all of this happened
in a second.
Copyright © Brenden Taylor | Year Posted 2010
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