on the whole

everything, if it could breathe, would exhale a gigantic sigh as though the whole earth being porous could squeeze and release all the air pent up inside itself. and, what a tremendous sigh–like a wind that could blow off your hat. all the kids on swingsets and the pushers of kids on swingsets across the world could do underdoggies beneath each other without the peril of hands pressed on plastic seats and ferocious sprinting from behind to below to in front.

it was simpler then, i'll say. life should always be as simple as this. the most terrifying thing in the world should be a gust of wind and the sensation of a friend passing underneath you on the swingset.  or, the most complex thing in the world should be the monkeybars, i could say that, too. the biggest thing we ever do should be climb to the crest of a slide and slip down, courageously, into the mulch below.

instead, i can feel the world breathing beneath my feet.  there was nothing more sure than that the ground would be there at the end of a slide, underneath the monkeybars, at the bottom of a long jump (on the count of 3-2-1) from a swing. but, the ground sags and heaves, rumbles and groans under the weight of ambitious feet–boys who have outgrown the playground but refuse to leap from swing to floor and land as adults on uneven earth.

but, there will be touchdown. one day, we may look like the men in ties and cleanly pressed shirts in coffeeshops on lunchbreaks, talking on blackberry cellphones and saying things like, i look forward to it!! sounds like a winner!! until our neatly-styled hair recedes and we make phone calls like these, to confirm meetings, to talk business over lunch, we'll look at it flabbergasted, how could we become this?!? what will we be looking on at boys in coffeeshops, thinking of ourselves when we were this young, disheveled and lost??

but, we're lost. both of us, me in my tattered jeans, him in his pleated khakis. and you're lost, fingers on a keyboard, eyes to the screen.

the man who just left the bathroom, he looks like Lorne Michaels, except chubbier; he's also taking a handful of free cinnamon bagel samples and stuffing them into his pockets. he knows what he wants. i'll be him and wear my hawaiian shirt in suburban ohio, take free samples without any regard for how much taking would qualify as theft.