Back from afar...

I’ve been off the Richter Scale, clear off the map, gone on planet zero in the nether galaxies that you haven’t heard of or studied in textbooks. I saw googly bats and fought jumba bings with their big horns and six-inch claws. I won. I climbed Mount Kurzikssyyalw and swam across the mud sea of planet Rkyyum in order to find transport back home. So many adventures, so many stories, some of triumph, others of defeat, but they will have to wait for a later date, because I’m back on Planet Saturday for the first time in what feels like eons. It’s been a long time…I know.

10a.m. in my friend’s car, passenger side screaming pop songs out the window at people still waking up, crawling out of beds and gutters, wherever Friday night laid them to rest. They’re shrugging the guilt and stress of last night off their shoulders. Today is a new day, this is a new place.

The cigarette smoke, in all its toxicity puffs out in clouds and ringlets, swirling in repeating patterns between us. A cough, a cackle, another spark, and the sun, raining down Vitamin D and a reason to smile. I laugh out loud, the wind rushing in off Santa Monica Blvd. through my hair, and back out her window. She’s beautiful.

The bar is roaring with rowdy men and drunken women, stirred to a frenzy by the violent sport, deemed friendly competition here on planet earth, projected out of 30 plasma televisions. She swears that it’s not even close to max capacity, I should have been here last week she says. She should have been on planet Crylox under the Socca Trees staring at the receding blue waters of the sea of Kareen, is what I think, but I buy a light beer instead, washing the words back down my throat and order another. My cellular device reads 10:50. I’ve missed it here.