nebraska.

we were waiting for a taxi.
our friends waited for us in the thick of city lights, guppy-mouthing around the draft-pull, ale and abandon dancing within them. after a grueling night of meatloaf slinging and milkshake frozen fingers, i wanted to dance with them too. i wasn't planning on drinking; moments before, our mouths pulled from a glass pipe borrowed from a frequent guest of our worn in home. the mind and body were breezy, but the night wasn't.
my fingers pierced skyward through the tight night air, sniffing out the burn of green and white and yellow taxi lights that carried no eager passenger. we look back towards the questionable clock. no cabs were coming and the minutes crept.
"it's really great out here," i say and joe sticks out his bottom lip with a nod as tom bounces on his heels to agree. i feel really good, i think, or maybe mumble. the nausea that threatened to bind me to the sticky pleather couch had subsided. my heart felt light and my thoughts settled. i was weighty with ease.
soon a black and white chariot nears the stoplight at the next corner. as my hand shoots up, i adjust my rising dress. joe reaches out to my arm, says "no, don't" then smiles with a child's relief at how quickly i retract my periscope fingers into a loose sky bound fist.
joe mentions nonsense about time that we don't acknowledge. we watch as vacant taxis race to rescue refugees of 2 am.
tom climbs the concrete island that divides the street but only half way. he picks an off-colored weed i fear is covered in the city's droppings and sticks it in his teeth. it fits him, as if the frail cattail always shimmied between his two thin lips. joe and i join him; joe's kicking at the patches of grass that border and fleck the cement. i look down at my two small black boots crushing the spines of untamed sprouts and suddenly, there is no concrete. there is no asphalt or anything hard. we are standing on a plush green and yellow rug, ankles deep in velvety nebraska in the front yard. if i had freckles, i know i could feel them and the sweat beads as the sun covers us in certain gold. i think of removing my cardigan to let the warmth kiss my chest in spite of the cold, lonely old men who do.
we are like children here, forgotten by working parents 'til supper's called from over the hill, so desperate to bloom and crawl into bigger shells, seek out brighter lights.
we wander, shuffling our caged feet, never looking up or back. i sneak a glance to my right as SUVs kick up litter and leaves in their passing. i think better of it and look at my feet again, tasting the natural light with my awestruck polluted tongue.
pressing forward, our steps clicked and shook the subway grates i could not picture as otherwise. they were as unexplainable as old town myths go, so i didn't question them. but the grates did stretch on forever; i toyed with the idea of train tracks, but i longed for where metal didn't exist, where my tiny red nose could furl at the unyielding burning of daylight, where shoulders could nestle into earth softer than a lover's embrace. i wondered what the boys were thinking as they gabbed ahead of me, tom with his hands stuffed into seemingly short pockets, joe's focus given only to the unknown that stretched beyond (if he was seeing them) stoplights. i wonder if they, too, were in this field, made homely and humble like middle america, digesting the blonde light cast upon us in the middle of the night. if an escape is really what we need, even if it's a ten step walk from domesticity. would we still be here content if our minds weren't fogged or bogged down by automatic work chatter that's competitive at best, if perhaps the azure stretch of television glow held us and nursed us for just one moment longer? who were we to the faceless sweep of sedan sedan SUV subcompact but vagrants and slobs who've never planned anything more than an hour in advance?
and then we met the edge.
the rocks looked chewed away by faulty steps or deliberate leaps and we three peered down what we assumed to be miles below our now careful feet.
joe says, "we've made it," and i don't know if this was where we expected to land, but he seems sure, and i trust him. i think of how swiftly i could lose my step and be stroked and cradled by the wind's whisper as it pulls from me in my drop. belly-up i'd float back to earth asleep. i turn to look at the grassy knoll that now seemed as distant as the tavern scene we ditched. i say this out loud and we're again in agreement.
joe says the divider looks like the sleek neck of an old guitar from the headstock where he's standing and we are but pegs wound with string. we choose to leave.
as i step off the landing my heart sinks into a stinking sepia tinged sultry city night where fluorescent lights and hues not found in the backwoods await us at the mini-mart on the corner.