Free Falling

Halloween '24, the night and morning after - so I can remember, always, what it felt like to be young and invincible and drunk on joy, love, laughter, friendship, and a sweet sadness

Beneath us, the city. Our feet dangling off the edge, sipping hungrily from red cups in our hands. Ceaseless traffic and a line of kaali-peelis. The windows long and wide so you don’t know which way to look when the sun sets and then it's gone before you know it. But tonight you don’t chase beautiful, fleeting things as they’re slipping away from you, tonight you’re holding them by their tail ends, feeling yourself being dragged along even as the moment is just beginning. Stuck in time, suspended, knowing this is so temporary but so forever.

When the sun sets the stars are in reach, just on the opposite side of the road. We’ll get to that in the morning, which’ll feel like a minute. But for now we have this, this drink, this moment, this song, this guitar chord played so gently and simply by one of your best friends that you start to believe. Believe. Believe that if this is all you get, this evening, these people, this laughter so unrestrained and so true, this big city boiled down to this room, then it will be more than enough.

*

But eventually all things turn to love, and so all things turn to grief. More often than not, they are the same thing, especially on nights like these. So hard to tell them apart now in the dark, swirling in the glasses, hanging in the air, love and grief, grief and love. We have a habit of making ourselves small for each. So your best friends slide to the floor, shrivel in on themselves, slurring their words, calling people they’re not supposed to call, the why must it end why did she leave why does she love her instead of it all. Young knees buckling already under the weight. Of love, not grief. Or of grief, not love? I forget which. In the morning it is clearer, it is more love than grief anyway, and that’s what matters.

*

Our youth tender and resilient in our fingers. Stepping on the whole world from our window. Between our fingers we crush this city. It grinds to a halt every time we look down. Invincible, invincible, that’s what we are.

We collapse into each other, fall to the floor. No one holds us up really but we’ve got people who fall with us. Free falling. Go down together so no one’s alone at rock bottom. Joy of your life to hold them, you realize, your hands and shoulders made for this. Needing no reason to hug them over and over, to cradle their heads in your laps. You cry, I cry. It’s that simple. We match our feet to the rhythm and our hearts to each other. The music finding us, soft eyes almost closed meeting in the space above the guitar, in the silence something conveyed. Nothing to say, really. 

Except I love you I love you I love you. Loosely translated, I want to save you from love. I want to give you so much of it you almost forget it hurts.

*

In the morning there is the mess. Table with old family pictures littered with red cups. Half-eaten pizza. Outside the city rising with the morning we watch, a song on our lips it seems always. Rolling last night’s memories on our tongues, fresh and whole still. On the guitar some sad song that makes your best friend sidle up to you and put his head in your lap. In no time you’re in tears again.

But eventually all of you lapsing into laughter as you always do. And who can tell you you aren’t beautiful now, with your cheeks hurting from grinning, your hands clutched to your waist, your loss of breath, your sheer ability to laugh. This sunrise almost jealous of how beautiful we are.

At breakfast you and your friends almost get kicked out. Ancient place, old city. Inappropriate conversation and ensuing breathless laughter. Used to being this obnoxious always, that’s half the fun. Make your presence known. Our youth still tender and resilient in our fingers, and loud.

*

The music and rhythm somehow finding us always. Last few songs before it ends. Some things so fiercely beautiful it physically hurts when you feel them slipping away. Like this morning. Somehow all of time contained within that house, every passing moment as if repeated over and over. So much beauty it cannot help but reciprocate. Holding each other a little less in the morning, but the love even clearer now in the light.

The city fully up again, noise from the streets, ceaseless traffic. Every time you stare down you are in awe. This city yours, entirely yours. Also these people and this song. 

How beautiful and unbelievable to have so many things to call your own.

Everything laced with a sweet sadness, a dull ache, moments so temporary they are forever. But remember please to feel you are alive still in this moment, it’s easy to forget. Smiling to yourself you look at your best friends, eyes welling up a little, each hugging the other over and over. Their sleeping bodies beside you, each breath you count as a miracle. Remember this is real, you get to have this. This, everything, pretty much all you need.

-Pia