time's running out

 

On many nights my friends and I would take ourselves

out to the main gate to buy a lone cigarette. A pack

would tense our lungs but a singular one is noble. Laughing 

at something from emanating from our phones. An undeniable 

tune stuck in all of our minds together. When we 

collide with friends of yesteryear — the herd

expands into a precipitous army of voices and madness. Talking 

over one another and cultivating four conversations at once. Where else

but my college campus would I learn about the sound from 

the operatic chinese flute dizi. or the developments in my friend’s 

curious polycule of lovers. or adorno’s dogged but futile attempts at 

employment in america. we’d take the forest shortcut back

to our rooms successfully using the pythagorean theorem

to make our routes exactly eleven minutes shorter. Starting to think 

I want those eleven minutes back with my friends