they laughed again

i dropped the bottle of wine in the store but it didn’t break. 

a girl across the isle looked at me like i had just set myself on fire.

///

The first time I went out drinking this year was the only time i remember feeling at one with the world around me. 

I remember the flowerbed’s out the front of the pub we piled inside of. 

I remember seeing a girl working behind the bar who i knew but it was so long ago now I don’t recall when we met.

I remember leaving my hat inside Sam’s car, she lives an hour away and promised me she would bring it for me soon.

But most of all i remember feeling like i belonged. The night was a haze but between the blank spaces in my head, i wandered around the woods and i was sitting holding a drink with the whole table looking to me for the next word.

I said something and they all laughed. Then Sam said something and they laughed again, i remember laughing also, then i was at the bar ordering another drink from the girl i had met a long time ago.

Then the night began and more people poured in the pub. From the window outside i saw the moon fractured through the glass window, whole and bright and white and very far away.

I left it there and had an awkward conversation with the girl i once knew, i think i asked her about her blue hair but it escapes me. Me and Sam have a conversation about a festival next weekend that i managed to get her on the list for. She thanks me and i begin to sober up.

Someone at the bar breaks a glass and a wave of ‘oooohs’ erupt from the surrounding tables. Someones phone screen catches the light and hits me in the eye. I close them and the world spins slightly before correcting itself.

I tell the other girl who I’m talking to now that i need some air and i stumble outside, trying not to look as drunk as i felt.

I admired the flowerbed bright with blooming red roses, and other blue flowers who’s names i did not know.

Smoke rose from the chimney and in the distance the cars rolled past with a good few minutes between them, their lights catching the foxes darting about the bushes.

A few more people are outside, holding drinks and laughing loudly into the warm night. I light up a cigarette and allow my blood to cool for a hot moment. I allowed myself to drift every so slightly.

I looked to the empty white sign where the street name had not yet been filled in.

“We should name it.” i said, out loud but quietly.

I stared at it, thinking of a name, until the dart burned down to a butt and someone came out to find me.

“What name should we give it,” i said to them. “the street…”

It was Sam, like i hoped it would be, she kicked the gravel with her black boots and shrugged, taking the last inhale from my twin fingers and shaking the dart from my hand.

“Something about rain.” she replied.

“That’d be nice.”

I nodded. The ground was hard and dry and we really needed rain.

“I missed a lot of the things we did before.” i said, only not out loud, this was in my head. (I hoped)

“I wasn’t here, i’m sorry i wasn’t really here.”

She didn’t answer because she didn’t hear it and we stood outside until we realised we couldn’t think of a good name for the road, and went back in.

Once inside i realised i forgot to look at the moon, who lit my feet. But i could still hear the cars go by in the distance. Or maybe it was something else, i was sobering up now.

We all left a little later and walked through the woods to get home. Melanie meandered and broke old branches beneath her boots and i climbed the nearest climbable tree, ignoring the dead lichens raining down on my hair and my head. Everyone stopped to smoke and i watched them and imagined that i was the moon. Old and dead and hanging over everyone without gaining so much as a glance. I hung from the strongest branch i found and watched until we began moving on. When i dropped it seems i misjudged the distance to the ground and lucky for me a pile of leave broke my fall. I thanked god it wasn’t a rock sent to break my bones and we all carried on up the hill.

The moonlight broke the crest of the dry earth above us, skittering between the gaps of the leaves. Painting us a silly stumbling portrait of youth and all beyond it.

I stopped at the bottom of the hill, unable to work out if i would make it to the top. But between the gaze of the Mani and the alcohol running through my veins i pumped myself up and charged forward. 

I made it, sweaty, to the top and waited for the others to catch up. I thought about climbing another tree but the moon seemed to shake her head. Rocks waited at the bottom of all these trees, which stood dead and brown.

I looked up again.

In the sky a lady lay with long flowing golden hair. She was stretched out and holding the crest of the moon like a bow, an arrow resting between it and her slender fingers.

I rubbed my eyes and she vanished with a smile. The woods were lit entirely by that small sliver of moon, and she rained down dust and fireflies to dance across the prairie, leading me to the place i knew as home.