I sat on the bench surrounded by the concrete beach and watched the murky green waves crash against the walls. The wind whistled past my bad ear, the ear I don’t hear to well out of. Seagulls cawed all around, the drone of the shore squeezed my mind tighter and tighter, pushing the words out of my mouth. I turned to him, “I wish you didn't smoke.”

He nodded slightly, then just sat there, lit cigarette in hand. He didn't puff it, he didn't ash. He did let it burn out. Those five minutes passed without a word or him taking his eyes off the water, or me taking my eyes off him. Just toxic smoke rising between us, pushed towards him a little because of the wind. When it was out, he dropped the butt and stood up.

His eyes were covered by sporty black sunglasses, and his head cloaked in his windbreaker’s hood, drawn tight around his face. For a second I thought he looked like an alien or a time traveler.

“Well,” he let out in an elongated drawn out fashion, “We should be heading home soon.”

But I didn't want to get up. I didn't get up.

He nodded again and sat back down.

Charlie was the kind of person who could get away with anything. He was smart, kind, talented, and never hurt anybody. Most of all he was hysterical. He was the funniest person i had ever met. Charlie and I had gone to school together our entire lives. I always admired him and moreover I just wanted to be like him. Luckily in the early days we must have had something in common because for years he was my friend.

The thing is though time has a funny way of changing things. Somewhere around the start of junior high there was a switch. Not in me, not in Charlie, but in our world. I started seeing facebook posts about social gatherings. I thought nothing of it at first. I had my freinds but I had never really found my outward side. The posts grew more frequent and they started to make me a little sad. Something somewhere inside of me, I wanted to be there. At parties. It just didnt happen. Everyone was nice to me, but I just never found myself in the social world. Charlie did. We never really had a true falling out, but me and Charlie grew apart over the course of the next few years. Every weekend he would go out and party, and I would spend my time at home, and we were both happy. We just didnt see as much of each other as we had when we were kids.

Junior year of high school Charlie and I were put into IB Physics together. The class was noted for being the most rigorous course available in the USA. This put people off from taking it usually so this class was really small, twenty people maximum. Day one I knew everyone by name.

As the weeks ticked by Charlie and I once had things to talk about. At first the class, and our shared distaste for the teacher, but eventually we went to catching up. He asked all about how my life had changed since we started hanging out and I told him the flat truth that I had remained very similar, just focused more on school. I asked him the same and he told me an explosion of tiny facts. He had become and ametuer street artist, started rapping, decided to major in art after high school, stuff like that. He hadn't lost an ounce of his personality. He was always the kid in elementary school the teacher wanted tested for ADHD, the type that the teacher would always ask if they were a single child. A performer on all levels. Everyday would end with one of us in one way or another saying that we needed to hang out sometime.

The day this actually happened was fascinating. It was late spring, on a friday. I ate my standard breakfast of two bowls of apple jacks, a guilt banana, and a croissant. I was just about to walk out the door when my dad called out, “Remember Ben, your MIT application is due today.” To tell the truth, I didn’t have much interest in going to MIT. When I was younger I put myself on a track to be an engineer because it sounds good on paper. These days, I didn't know much what I wanted to be, but I knew it wasn't an engineer. How could I tell this to my dad though? Some parents force their kids to act because they never could. That was the kind of support my dad gave me for MIT and being an engineer.

Later that day everyone in IB Physics was buzzing the fast approaching deadline of the MIT application. The kind of people who take IB Physics are very much the people who apply to MIT. I worked on some thick textbook problems because I had no use discussing the application. “Why are you even bothering working this period? Even the teacher said we could work on our applications.” I turned slightly to see Charlie in his green sweatshirt, with his hat turned backwards. As soon as I saw him I knew he was someone I could tell the truth to.

“Is it bad that I don’t think I am going to apply to MIT?” I asked.

“Do you want to be an engineer?”

“No.”

“Then no. Why bother?”

“My dad.”

“Fuck your dad. Hey you busy tonight?”

I was caught off guard. I was used to empty promises of hanging out but this was the start of a plan. “I have no plans.”

“We should hang out.”

“Yeah that sounds good. For how long?”

“Fuck it. All night.”

“Yeah, thats exactly what I want.”

I called my dad. I told him I finished my application in class, and asked if I could spend the night at Charlie’s house. Yes dad, Charlie from elementary school. Yes dad, we have IB Physics together. Yes dad, I am sure I finished my application (a lie). Thank you dad. As soon as I had confirmation I told Charlie. He told me to meet him at the main exit right after school.

I spent the rest of the day anxious. Not at what might occur that night, (I didn't care) but rather around how my dad might react when he found out that I didn't apply to MIT.

Nonetheless I found myself completely calm entering Charlie’s car after school.

We went to his house and played video games. His mom, a sweet lady, ordered us pizza. she brought it down and said something that blew my mind, “Charlie if you guys go out tonight, don’t drive drunk or high ok?” Now that was a perfectly reasonable request, but she didn't request we didn't do drugs or drink. She requested we didn't drive when we did.

“Of course Mom.” and she went upstairs.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“She just asked you not to drive, not to not do anything.”

“Well I mean, she knows I’m probably going to smoke and drink tonight. She doesn’t support it but she just does her best to compromise.”

“If my mom knew I had done anything like that she would kill me with an abstract concept.”

“You ever do that kind of stuff?”

“No I haven’t.”

“You are willing to try though…” He asked as if stating a prompt, or continueing my sentence.

“Yeah sure.” Which was true. The way I saw it, I was seventeen years old and if Charlie could cut loose everyday and be in the same point in life as me, I could try it.

“Lets party.”

Next thing I knew I was climbing back into Charlie’s car. “We are going to pick up Emily. She is going to come with us.” Emily was a girl we had met freshman year. She was a lot like Charlie in that she was perfect. She was a four point oh student, a four season athlete, and had impeccable SAT and ACT scores. She had a perfect shot at any college she wanted to go to. We pulled up into her driveway and she was running out the door before we could even tell her we were here. She jumped into the back.

“Ben! Hey what’s up?”

“He is with me tonight.” Charlie informed.

“Lets go to the lookout and smoke a bowl.”

Across our suburban Seattle stomping grounds there is a plethora of lookouts. Cliffs

turned into parking lots so you can see the skyline across the water. Within ten minutes we were at one.

The sun was setting behind us, with our hood pointed at the rising from left to right skyscrapers of the largest city in the pacific northwest. I had just a twinge of anxiety but pot was something I had heard so much about I sort of knew what to expect.

Charlie reached into his glove compartment and brought out a little blue glass pipe, and what was later explained to me as being a grinder. To me it looked like a gray cylinder. I watched Charlie fill the pipe with finely ground greenery as he explained, “This pipe’s name is James Franco. Matt, you remember Matt, Matt has a slightly fatter version named Seth Rogen.” he then lifted it to his mouth, pulled a lighter out of nowhere, and took a hit. I took notes of how he lite, held and exhaled the smoke. The smoke smelt like smoke that would have come out of a skunk’s ass. He handed it to me and I did my best to imitate what he had done. It burnt my throat a lot, and i coughed really hard but I was told both of those things were to be expected. I handed it back to Emily and she hit it.

We repeated this around in that same pattern for almost an hour. We refilled the bowl, four five six seven times. I didn’t realize how high I was getting as it happened. The car was fully hot boxed. The steam from our breaths combined with smoke to make it impossible to see out of the windows.

My limbs started to feel big. Like balloons. I was aware that this was just a side effect of the marijuana. I watched the fog and condensation on the windshield as it formed a bunch of wacky patterns. I started laughing, at everything. I felt extremely relaxed.

There was just a slight delay in everything. I would see something and it would take me a moment to perceive it. I was thoroughly blazed. I wasn’t just really high for my first time smoking, I was really high for someone who smoked all the time. I fell back into the seat and let the high take me.

“Yo Matt wants to smoke a bong.”

Charlie announced as we started driving there.

“Yes!” Emily cried out. “I haven't seen Matt since the bathroom night.”

Charlie began laughing. I asked, “The bathroom night?”

“Charlie, Matt, and I stayed up all night in a bathroom railing adderall and talking about life.” If i was any less high I would have said something. I would have noted how it was bizarre that the brightest people I know, and the people I have known my whole life, lived this life, they party and they do drugs. I held my tongue.

We arrived at Matt’s house and went inside. Charlie was more functional than me and talked to Matt as I stood quietly in the corner. I studied Matt. He was tall and lanky life me, both of us having and easy head on Charlie. Matt had a buzz cut and a stern face. Compared to Charlie he was plain, but somehow it struck me that on some level Matt was the more interesting person.

I found myself in a basement moments later with Matt, Charlie, and Emily. The four of us sat in a circle, or a square. Matt and Charlie explained to me how to use a bong as Emily loaded one with even more weed. I hit it and my god I thought I had coughed a lot on the pipe, but this was something out of another world. It was roughly ten o’clock and we smoked the bong for several hours. By eleven there was a second bong going around the circle. As we all got more and more stoned it didn't matter what we were talking about.

At midnight Charlie shot up out of his chair, “Guys we have to go to Me Kwa Mooks. Jennifer is throwing a party.”

At the drop of the bomb we all moved into a car, I frankly don’t remember whose, and started driving. Me Kwa Mooks is a small secluded nature park on the west side of Elliott Bay, and evidently a hot spot for teenage dubocherary.

I was beyond high when we arrived. It seemed that everyone I had ever met in my life was here. AP IB students, athletes, gangsters, everyone. They were all drinking and smoking like it was the civil war and a doctor was coming to saw our legs off. Some of us were celebrating turning the MIT application in, some of us celebrating our unchecked freedom, some of us trying to forget our woes, but we were all there together being stupid.

Charlie introduced me Jennifer. I had seen her at school but he had never met. She was drinking something out of mason jar. I looked closely to see what it was but I got caught, “You want some?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“Very strong lemon drop.”

“Sure.” I took a huge drink, and let me tell you that the phrase strong lemon drop must mean vodka with a tiny bit of lemon. I said my goodbyes to Jennifer and went to mingle. The weed and vodka made me relaxed so I was talking to and taking drinks from strangers. Around Three A.M. I was fucked up.

I toppled around, a twig in the wind. The sea of people around consumed and accepted my like the sea to the sand only a few feet west of our gathering. Time and blood alcohol levels pulled me away to previous inhibitions. The stars watched us like the mother of a stripper walking into her daughters club on a monday night.

As I made my rounds I heard a slight moan, “Ben!” held out long and smooth. I turned to see Jennifer leaning on a tree, “Ben I can’t find my friends.”

I thought briefly. “Oh no.”

“Ben…”

“Are you…” I stuttered on my drunken tongue, “Are you ok?”

“I can’t find my friends.” She was very drunk.

“Do you want to sit down for a bit?”

“I can’t see straight. I can’t find my friends.”

“Ok, come with me.” I held out my hand, she took it. I lead her away from the chaos of the raging party.

We sat down in some bushes slight up the hill. We were both very drunk, and I was also very high. We were the farthest from sober that we could have achieved. Being crossfaded and very tired, I leaned my head on her shoulder. She slid her hand onto my chest. I turned to see her, and our lips met. Her mouth tasted like beer and grape swisher. Slowly we rolled over so I was on top of her. She started to rub my groin, and I returned the favor.

“Fuck me.” she stated as she unzipped my pants. I slipped off my pants and boxers as she grabbed a condom out of her jacket pocket. She slid it over my erect penis. On my knees I walked over to her, reaching up her skirt and sliding her panties down. I spread her knees and put myself in position.

My vision was so blurry, and I was so wobbly. I couldn’t make out her vagina. I kept closing my eyes hoping the spins would go away but they werent. I also kept hearing sounds, screams and motion. “Fuck me!” She moaned in an effort to speed me up, but I was so drunk it amazes me I could keep an erection. I started seeing lights, blue red and white, and seeing people running. I finally found her vagina, just pressing my tip against it when she said, “Stop, you have to stop.”

“What why?”

“Cops! We have to go!”

I shot up and so did she, abandoning me and her panties as she ran. I went to grab my pants and boxers but a Seattle Police officer was fast approaching. I grabbed my shoes and barely got my underwear, missing my pants. Shoes in one hand, boxers in the other I ran. I bolted up the steep hill, tugging at the condom trying to get it off my now flaccid penis. It became clear I wasn’t going to be able to outrun anyone while this drunk so

I chose to hide in a bush.

By a true miracle, Charlie and Matt had chosen the same bush. “Ben put your fucking pants on!” Matt yell whispered.

“Oh shit Ben got laid!”

“Charlie! Shut up. Ben, put your pants on.”

I finally got the condom off and slid my boxers on, when all the sudden the trees and bushes around us lit up bright blue. A helicopter was searching the area. Charlie looked at me and mouthed “Holy shit!”

“Run. Lets just run.” Matt said. We did just that, sprinting as fast as we could, once out of the park we cut through backyards, and alleys and zig zagged for several miles.

We found ourselves at the bottom of a hill, atop the hill was our old elementary school. There was no police, and the helicopter was still over the park so we decided we were safe. I looked up at the elementary school, and around out myself and my old new friends and realized how time has a funny way of changing things. As I realized this we sat, and watched the cold vacant sunrise.

Several hours later we went back and found my pants. I was sober now. I thanked Charlie for the crazy night and he told me I could do it again any weekend. He drove me home, and I stood before the door preparing a story to tell my parents on why I didn’t apply to MIT. Once I decided there was no reason and I had no excuse I found peace in it. I took a deep breath, turned the knob and went inside, ready for the bad things to come.

I don’t understand why movie theaters and bowling alleys insist on having the most absurd carpets ever. No matter where you are in America, from sea to shining sea, if you walk into one of these establishments the carpet will be an Odyssey of zest, a Ulysses of the atypical. Comets, streamers, explosions, weird and crazy patterns get trampled and a general psychedelic erre permeates up into the world. From a carpet. What makes it strange is that the ancestors of these, fairly, modern gathering places do not have the same carpet situation. True theatrical theaters, live theaters, have perfectly normal carpets, and gyms just have hardwood floors.

My grandparents got married in 1964. My grandfather had graduated from the local high school the year before and grandmother was a senior. They lived right next door from each other from the moment my grandmother moved to town until two years later when they got married and moved in together. The married April 1st 1964. My father was born January 1st 1965 and widely regarded as the new year baby that year.

My parents aren't married. They never have been. My older brother was conceived by mistake and my parents never bothered to get married. I was also conceived by mistake. My parents didn't ever really stay together, but never apart. They had what can only really be called a committed monogamous on again off again relationship.

Tracing back, I had thought of my parents relationship because i had thought of my grandparents, which i had thought of because i saw their anniversary on a poster for an upcoming movie, and i had recognized because i knew it was three months after my father’s birthday.The poster was for some sci-fi movie where the hero had to save the damsel from the evil corporation. i had seen the trailers and was marginally interested. I was standing in the lobby of one of the soulless chain movie theaters, while my girlfriend used the bathroom after the b+ rom-com we had just left.

I had something deep in my heart i needed to confess. like money burning a hole in my pocket, words burnt holes in my mind. It was drowning in whatever it is I let drip into my heart through a pinhole.This wasn't something could just say. This was changing my world. This was nuclear. I had to tell her, but it could ruin our relationship if she wasn't ok with it. This is a thing i had never told anyone.

That actually isn't true. I had told one person before, but he didn't know who I was.

I had sat alone in the dark room with the floral brass fixtures casting a shadow on my face. I waited. In moments the small window, no bigger than a mouth, slid open and the father spoke, “Tell me your sins child.”

“Lust father. Greed.”

“Hail Mary.” a pause, “Hail Mary.”

“Father?”

“Yes child?”

“I have something to confess that is not a sin.”

“That will be fine.”

And I told him.

Without even thinking he began to recite from memory, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully; even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

"Thank you Father.”

“Bless you child.”

As I stood looking at the poster, I could vaguely see my own reflection in the chrome of a spaceship. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see my beautiful girlfriend smiling at me, her eyes full of joy. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. If I didn’t say it then, it was going to drown. “I love you.”

She looked at me blankly. “You love me?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, “I love you too. I have for a very long time. I… I didn’t know if you wanted to know though.”

I smiled, letting my hair fall down in front of my face. “I love you so much. It seems like I thought this was a bigger deal than it was.”

“Me too.”

Keeping my eyes down I examined the carpet. It was red. Plain, simple red. No comets, no streamers, no explosions, and no weird or crazy patterns. Just red. I looked back up at her. “Come on,” I said,

“Lets go bowling.”

“Flashing yellow?”

For years I never understood why Mickey would ask either, “Flashing yellow?” or “Flashing red?” every time we went through an intersection with either. I would always say yes, no, or whatever it really was. I made my assumptions, and figured he was just slow to react or wanted backup when he saw something late.

“Is it a flashing yellow?”

The night Mickey purposed he was wearing what he normally wore to work, nice black jeans, a fairly casual black pinstripe blazer, and a nice button down shirt which today was red. I teased him because his purple tie was clashing really hard. “What do you mean? My tie is blue.” Oh sweetie you must have grabbed the wrong tie.

“Is this a flashing yellow or a flashing red?”

The next afternoon we spent calling everyone in both families, and all of our friends. We didn’t have a date or anything but we were excited. No one was surprised. Mickey and I are one of the few couples that have been together for ever. We got together the summer before our junior year so I guess we could be called highschool sweethearts. We stayed together while I went to art school, and he went to college. Time went on and I found myself with a degree in art, painting I guess, and found himself with an Associates degree in business and later the title of regional manager a chain carpet store. We were always comfortable and happy, we never doubted our relationship for a second. His mother cried out, ‘Mitchell! Alexandra! I always knew I always knew!’ when we told her. I guess she always knew.

“Alex?”

We were going to go out drinking the night we told everyone. I put on my black dress, and some white heels. Mickey? “Yeah?” Can you go grab me my white pearl necklace? (I don't know nor really care if either of my pearl necklaces are real pearl, but they are both beautiful). Mickey turned back to me holding what was clearly my pink pearls. Mickey, the white ones. He looked down confused. “Arent they both white?” Mickey you bought them, shouldn’t you know I have a pink set and a white set? “Hm. Could of sworn I bought two white necklaces.” I reached my neck up and kissed his cheek, Dork.

“Should I yield or stop?”

I started hearing his questions as I was waking up. It was the morning after our night out. Neither of us had drank very much but being out late isnt a thing I normally do so I was tired the next day. We were driving to go see his mother for brunch. I had dozed off.

“Alex!?”

He was growing more frantic by the time I was even alive enough to look around. Unable to even see a light I announced what he should do to be safe, “Just stop.”

I felt him actually hit the brakes but it wasn't enough. He had waited too long to choose and now he was too late to stop. Conveniently coming perpendicular was someone who was either unaware or disregardful of basic traffic laws. The car didn’t us exactly in the middle but luckily only hit our nose. We were both going a little under forty five so it was a hard hit. T-bone style, our seatbelts didn’t lock so Mickey and I both got pushed hard to the left, but we both remained seated. My cell phone that was in my hand flew out and hit Mickey in the face. Both cars stopped immediately.

I looked at Mickey. The other driver got out, I could hear him asking if we were ok. Mickey looked back at me, “Are you ok?” Yeah I am. Are you? “Yeah I am.” The other driver was standing outside our window while we both just took a minute to consider our luck. I ran through the last few moments in my head. I calculated why we were where we were. I traced back every little detail and considered other moments with Mickey and it all hit me at once.

“Mickey. You are colorblind.”

what doesn't kill me

piles up on my

shoulders

pound by pound

beating down onto my

skin

the weight of all

the horrors I've witnessed

erodes away at my

back

turning my

skin

into dust and dirt

flakes of emotions

brushing away

with each gust of wind

what doesn't kill me

turns my

spine and bones

into wood

an infestation

of termites

crawling throughout

the crevices of my

ribcage

assisting in the

deterioration

of my

hope

You.

Are so beautiful.

And kind.

And how your eyes shine,

Making people drop like flies

Might just make it a crime

To have beauty this divine

You.

Are so beautiful.