I lay on my soft bed,
contemplating last night.
Grounded.
What a horrible word.
It has a bleak finality to it.
Hearing it is like hearing the sound of
metal prison gates crashing down
on you.
It was worth it though.
Everyone had been there.
Late at night,
as the crickets chirped as if
warning me not to go,
I had slipped out my bedroom window
and gotten quietly into the
old,
beat up blue car.
I had started it as silently as possible;
keeping my eyes on the darkened upstairs windows, that I was terrified would suddenly be
flooded with light.
Everything had stayed still
as I drove off,
my headlights swallowing the dark road,
and bathing it in light.
I could hear the heavy
metal music from
three blocks away,
being pumped out onto the
empty road.
I had parked the car carefully in a
patch of bushes,
and jogged up to the house.
I don’t really remember
the party.
I do,
however,
remember how amazing it was.
Dancing,
music,
laughing with friends.
Nobody cared who was going to college where.
The heat in the room was unbearable,
like the Sahara desert
and the Amazon
combined in one,
but we couldn’t open one of the
dusty widows and
risk letting anyone hear us,
so we simply ignored it,
sweat running down our faces
like streams.
I got back into the car at
around three in the morning.
I could see the moon behind a cloud,
shedding silver
radiance
over everything.
Life was great.
Wonderful.
I was floating on top of the world.
At east until I tried to sneak
back through the
red front door of the house.
I got out my key,
wincing as a
rusty screech filled
the air as I turned it.
I pushed it open,
careful so as not to
let the hinges creek.
My mom was there,
with a scowl on her face.