Joseph Norris / I was a raucous running wild

I was a raucous running wild Joseph Norris

all through the long hours of the night. Flailing arms & bruises standing out like water-stains on white ceilings, broken door frames, me-shaped holes in the wall, I disappeared just after sunrise. My car would implode and I’d turn to stone, posed an expression of anxiety on my face, trying to get away.

In the repeating sliver of lines breaking through the blinds of our apartment window, I sprang up and out of bed in my underwear PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE BELIEVE IN ALL YOUR WILD DREAMS!

I stood on ledges in the dark, looking down on neighborhoods with a pushing breeze at my heels, and my God, if there wasn’t so much to say about it being the last time I’d ever do it, I could have felt that our life was beautiful, and the moment was beautiful, and to be young is beautiful, and I could be my father’s son again every night for the rest of my life.

Once, on a flight at dusk, of 30,000 feet: out the window the size of loose leaf, there was a turning-twist of orange sun so big, I felt if I looked away, it would never be there again. As if the shapeless face of night would come too soon and our hands, yours and mine would come unbraided.