In May there was the gravel arboretum parking lot to spread donut powdered sugar rock dust onto the grass small flexible razor blade ceilings to ants dirt hidden things.

Wet grass grabbed the dust stuck and sucked it up and I walked from the car ducked under the gate and became slightly sugary gray in the half light.

Skinny boy before behind me queer as fruit and all juicy mine.

Big road right next to us, train tracks next to it, us on the cliff hill with the trees still standing as is donated to science by some benevolent crosswind bird long ago; they watch the trains come to the tracks, each October the state fair circus locomotive chugged into town and they carried that elephant ear greasy screw nicotine smell trapped in their leaf veins year round.

Warehouses grow flowers here protected by corrugated sheeting, rusting metal bars guard the grass each night, it's a precious commodity nowadays you know.

No Trespassing. Closed After Dusk. Keep Out. No Trespassing. NO TRESPASSING.

Stenciled letters screamed at me but dark and cold (it had been summer that morning) we trespassed, sat on the old swing creaking cracking gray indifferent wood.

A symbol of all that is nature in the little grass clearing eating gravel tire dust and mud pies for dessert.

Wet and cold and rocky my bare feet were unhappy but who listens to their feet anyways? I ran around the grassy glassy clearing black skirt soaked through, white top tie-dyed by watery grass stains now transparent; Cold.

I was seven years old the tomboy queen with skinned knees and a tiara in that industrial grass so suppliant.

Seven years old in part but more than just the past, right then my seven year old blonde roots showing through the inner dye job trying to blacken them out, the endemic feistiness appearing even earlier that day when I'd thrown my hundred pounds figuratively around to get good vegan food from a carnivorous waiter at dinner.

Mascara running red lipstick smeared my tits showed clear through the men's underwear cotton tank top grabbed off someone's floor at an indeterminate past moment now clinging damply to me.

Good-smelling little Emo Boy sat cross-legged to my side, an attentive attractive audience as I relived twelve year old ballerina days, fifteen year old mosh pits, raver-bunny hoop dreams, a mixed-up summer as a soft head, actress activist fashion victim feminist keg stand granola whore tranced angsty indie punk industrial-hating apathetic book nut faintly delinquent daddy's girl. And you all know exactly what I'm talking about, don't matter Who you are today. All twirled out through the grass trip the light fantastic, all me even now. No longer a garden salad confused confetti me with separable parts I am pureed protein shake extra honey even now.

Interrupted when I stepped on a rock winced and fell

Lay panting on the grass, prickly, strobed by the high beams streaming past below, staring at the stars which I couldn't see from the city lights and my bad eyes now closed.

Boy's eyes drawn to me, different human being body smooth silk skin and cream small breasts so visible so strange to him in his world of phallics and scratchy stubble kisses, pastel little girl's stretchy thrift store shirts covering nearly unisexual arms, so What am I? Real girl soft lips man's shirt smooth legs new to you, likeable.

We had on matching bracelets, plastic children's beads on elastic thread, trendy electric colored friendship gifts incongruous with the monochromatic grays, gray-greens, gray-blues, gray-browns, all around, us.

Night paints everything in its likeness, it's the ultimate unifier, men can grow plants but we can't grow darkness nor can we stop the regular intervals at which it turns all our carefully tended flora to one faint colorless blur only to be defeated by the sun at every turn, but the moon is the commander of the ultimate underdog army of stars, missile base of darkness, night always wins but only for so long and tentatively dread knowledge of the soon coming sunrise colors to burn it away, the night comes quietly and leaves the same but the sun is proud and loud and searing, we need it to blossom on this rondure and it reminds us daily of this in its triumphantly brilliant entrances and exits; the sun always goes down in a blaze of glory don't forget.

This May arbor-evening enveloping gray glow, the not quite dark streets, pesky nightlight of civilization refuses to be shut off, but with the sun gone and our insides exhausted, spilled out gently dissected slippery banana peel souls in the grass we lay breathing.

A few glances nervous excited giggles new territory but parts is parts connections is connections whether conversational pissings or exploratory kissings, we're so young and beautiful, sweetly sardonic stereotypical irrelevancies hung in the branch twigs watching explosive barely innocent wanderings, tied-down and influencable only by ourselves and the grass.

Yummy sloppy Starburst candy kisses finding our ways completely self-involved gloriously deep and learn'ed kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss … … … Headlights!

Campus Security! Rent-an-Enforcement priests ordained in ordinances organizing the ordinary next to the odd into boxable oracles made to order. Saw the car little old red thing unshiny as the swing not supposed to be there. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. Keep Off The Grass.

Us jumped up break away mirthful game of tag with angry uniformed IT-persons following, us grabbing speedy fistfuls of our friends hurling them over our shoulders as though staving off superstitious broken mirror salt ladder black cat bad luck.

Grass leaves twigs flew backwards through the air towards running men stupid men chased us right around in a circle, us ducked back to other gate side crunch crunch crunch gravel underfoot car door key open slam us gone.

Gasping for air unrestrained intoxicating thrills, probably suspected contraband bootleg adolescent mischief something arrestable but not us!

Us ran us successful now us on big road us headlights us exhilaration simmering quietly.

How bad ass am I?

Slowly breathing speeding car unsure now as tofu vanilla reality sets back in on the verge of uncomfortable amusing silence so ridiculous, shuffling sorting filing those just past seconds passed in a blur now must be reexamined.

It only takes me a moment to see everything cleanly, I'm tickled my insides turned to seltzer water fizzing through the heightened exciting sensation of being corporeal, toes arms skin organs bellybutton fingers blood joints, fluid motion possibilities, ephemeral being existence singularity.

Suddenly I cannot stop laughing.