Parking

I used to read stories of people going on these long drives in the country with their loved ones
Windows down
Wind blowing back their hair
Carrying the words of their random sporadic conversations
Enclosing them in a bubble of laughters and shared dreams



But we were from Big City Chicago
Where gas prices rise like skyscrapers
And There are no winding roads
unless you count the dangerous curves of lower Wacker
and you, my friend, had no taste for unnecessary danger
So instead of driving
We would just park
We would park your car in the lot on the hill overlooking
The train station
the field of steel carrying our colorful dreams and watch them speed away
We would imagine all the places they would take us
Together
One day

Some days it would rain
steady paradiddles on the hood of your own Grease Lightening
keeping time to the acoustic guitiar track softly playing through the speakers
We would
lean our seats all the way back and begin to whisper
voices hushed as if if anyone else heard us our almost silent prayers wouldn't be answered
I would
turn my head
sinking my nose into the leather that always seemed to carry a little bit of you
trying to absorb the very essence of that second and fold it away in my memory
smile as you tried to explain why you put a chord in a certain progression
and only truly hear you saying how happy you were in that moment
dreaming of how happy you would be

Every once in a while we would hear the whistle of the trains we were overlooking
lean up and wonder where it was going
and if one day it would be carrying us with it
Us
Together
One day