We began the afternoon drunk on our youthful vigor, emitting high-pitched howls of laughter recognition at our glorious in-jokes. We recited eulogies to the locals in the guise of long-forgotten commercial jingles and devoured the innuendo, so transparent. We imbibed glass after glass of top shelf wine, so necessary. We high-fived each other from across crowded cafés as we slam-dunked brilliance, via telepathy, and wrote it all down and called it poetry. We took turns making out with the complacent park bench statue of Mark Twain. (Sorry, Samuel C!), and took photos of some weird toy with Godzilla’s body and Elmo’s head and passed them under the table like it was the most titillating pornography to ever disgrace the San Gabriel Valley. We were gods and goddesses on those sultry, sun-drenched suburban streets. We played the part, looked marvelous, and felt light years ahead of our ever-present past. We groped random strangers and break-danced while belching sonnets about zombie romance to the homeless. We came, we saw, we conned the maligned into passing down our legend to the campfire converted. But those naïve ceramic polar bear figurines will never, ever forgive us for what we did to them.
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Eric Lawson is the author of three poetry chapbooks, four comedy collections, an internet cartoon, a cell phone novel, and eight short film scripts. He is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles and has been known to smirk uncontrollably.
Lead image: “Should I be jealous?” (via Flickr user Kitty DuKane)
some of the details were different but I had this day. It was GREAT.