"I'd Be So Still for You"
I go back inside and put on Miles, and it's been two summers since, but I remember it all the same. The four of us landing at the airport sometime after midnight, a different time zone. We drug our suitcases behind us like atrophied limbs, and she and I went looking for the smoking lounge while you stood heckling over a rental car. We watched the planes, silent on the tarmac, and our lips and eyes puckered purple under the green fluorescent lighting from lack of sleep. He found us later napping and bent oddly into the chairs, our legs and arms splayed curiously as welded curling metal . We followed behind him like lost children, trusting that he'd lead us somewhere, and we emerged into a omnipresent night with humid sleepy breath, still dragging the luggage behind us in search of our car. Later the two of them fell back asleep in the backseat, and he and I picked over maps, eyeing exits with interest, and listening to that lonely trumpet. He rolled down the windows, and although we were still a couple of miles off the beach, I sniffed at the salty air. I got us lost a few times, but it was already too late to really matter, and he just rumpled my hair affectionately, like a puppy, and told me that I'd be dangerous if I had a brain. He asked me questions quickly, snapping them forward like tense rubber bands, not really caring to hear the answers, but i droned on a bit too entertain him even though I was stupid in all my drowsiness. He nodded his head along and chain smoked, chuckling now and then. We pulled in and they had been up waiting for us, drinking margaritas and drying out their ocean snarled hair. He and I exchanged glances over their stories, united all the same.