And this is how it starts.

You are reading a page I once wrote 

about a paper game (of consequences)

in which my friend met god on the couch of eternity—

and he turned to her and said

   Hey you wanna get out of here and see the world?

before leaning back and flapping out his coat

which rustled the dried flowers 

on a mahogany crooked mantelpiece 

that groaned and crackled 

beside a beat-up vinyl player—

“It’s nice to imagine your thoughts in your head,”

he said. 

     Hey, you wanna get out of here and see the world?

               at Twickly Crescent  

warm summer nights on record, 

   crooning 

   splashed orange and red,  

“it’s a saxophone sunrise”

he said,

spraypainted 

And six foot high —-

      Hey you wanna get out of here and see the world?

I hear bells 

and the rolling of a trolley 

and I think how grateful I am 

right now 

for being in a house. 

for weetabix and milk and half a banana,

and how toes are like feet but in the fourth dimension— 

like a tesseract-

and I know that doesn’t make sense 

but I swear it does.   

I’ve written about it before-

like that nugget of feeling in your chest 

when you look into someone’s eyes and see a spark of recognition that so deeply hides

 in that neon light, disco ball dungeon 

Where I two-step sidled my way over to you and said,

Hey, you wanna get out of here and see the world?

Before quickly moving away to seem mysterious and disappearing amongst a crowd of teenagers 

who wear clothes that proclaim

‘if life is a rollercoaster, I’m learning to just scream and have fun,

because there’s always something you could like around every corner

So just be curious and explore and have fun and’-

Hey, you wanna get out of here and see the world?

I look up at you.

Well, dear reader—

How about it?

Editors: Lucy Cafiero & Erynn Crittenden