Queen Of The Night

The sun sets earlier now, and I have found myself trapped in daily, chilly, three hour long dusk.  Perpetual evening?  Ick.

I remember when the night was our play time.  Before six p.m. rolled around, and the 'grown up' need to get back home and make dinner made itself so very present to me.  I spent countless hours laughing with friends at their apartments, in bars, at house parties, and crammed in cars with boys.  These days, I am lucky to get out to networking events after dark.  And I learned of them recently.

I remember one of the last nights that I spent as a 'child'.  I wrote about it a few years ago.

On bicycles, she and I.  We peddled down and around to the back door of the house that he lived in.  Both of us ignoring the pull of our hearts to where we left her sleeping mother and father.  And the sliding glass door half-open.

Past dark houses and parked cars, we dutifully peddled toward freedom.  'Left, right, left, right.'  The breeze in the spokes of our Cherry Bomb and Jazz Rocket made it feel much faster.

In the yard, behind the hot tub, he waited with the others.  That summer, our last, they were like brothers.  ''What took you so long?'', someone whispered.  We made it.

We ran in the darkness.  Pushing.  Sweating.  Laughing.  Until the lights came on again.  I can still feel the heat on my cheeks and the ache in my sides from laughing like we thought we'd never stop.

On the way back to where we left our pillows and teddy bears, we weaved between the mailboxes.  In, out, in again.  Our giggles filled the night air thick as fog.  ''Wait up!''

The shadows of our bicycles grew larger and smaller on houses that seemd to float by, as if on a giant Merry-go-Round.

''Shhh....". She gave me a wink and held open the curtain.  We slipped in again.  And made it. 

 I wish we were still on speaking terms.

Maybe it's about time I grow up and fix things.