i do not mind if she smokes in my car

as i drive her home

because i like to wind down the windows

in the dark

and let her cigarette burn away

so in the morning when i wake

and drive off to some place

i can smell the lingering smoke

and tell myself i am not alone,

i am never alone

There are certain moments in life that define growing up—

Seeing your father as a man, complete with flaws, unfulfilled dreams, and unchained lust, and vowing to learn from him, but not repeat after him.

 The first time you break up with a girl, growing the balls to walk away from a schedule of regular, ‘easy’ sex.

The first time you stay out so late you are able to watch the sunrise.

And of course, getting absolutely hammered on the fourth of July and waking up next to a girl that you just met at the local high school during the fireworks display. Not that I did that on my fourth of July. Mine was better.

 Because my buddy and I were both sick of dealing with our respective women, and because he is moving to Los Angeles in a few weeks, we decided to spend the fourth of July together. No homo, of course, but if it weren’t for him I would have spent it alone.

We went to the closest fireworks display to his apartment, in Mira Mesa, a small town in Northern San Diego famous for its hot white girls and winding roads. We walked through the crowded streets to the local high school, whose football field the fireworks were being launched from. But we were not going to sit on the sidewalk in front of the business district school like everyone else and watch the lower fireworks get obscured by the trees. So in a moment of spontaneity and fearlessness, we climbed up onto the roof of a building about fifty meters away from the school and watched the fireworks from there. For the first time in my life I actually smelt real fireworks… not the small, illegal Vietnamese ones I set off on the driveway when I was small. Some of the larger ones came so close that I could have sworn that I could have touched them with my own hand had I wanted to reach it out. And the sound-- it was so deafeningly loud that the alarms of the cars in the parking lot below us went off. It was like someone was firing a gun right next to my head. It was uncomfortable. It was unhealthy. It was amazing.

After the fireworks display was over, we stayed on the roof to people watch. It’s amazing how of the hundreds of people who drove and walked by, only two looked up—two high school aged girls who asked how we got up there and if they could come up too. We told them no. After about an hour, we climbed down from the roof, and walked back to his apartment, where we popped open a few beers, grilled hamburgers on the stove, and counted every police car passing.

last night we went to the park

and we climbed the trees toward the stars

i told her i was afraid of unstable footing

and doing things

that were not planned

she threw all her belongings to the ground

and took both of my hands