those summer nights at 17 DS Maolalaí were wonderful when we’d stumble funny home from the city center to dodge the cost of taxi fare, drunk and sometimes singing or sometimes talking about our favorite songs loudly over the thunder of nightbuses and the clatter of piss on alley walls. the night was always peaceful as somebody falling asleep, funny as slapstick, and we’d pick up more beer from our houses to keep us from losing the edge and end up at 4am in the schoolyard nearby, looking at the emptiness and drinking it slow and sharing the kind of talk you have late at night while the lamplight poured across the buildings like a glass of yellow wine. the friendships that you get at 6 years old have nothing to do with personality and everything with convenience but they last harder than anything, and cling like creepers on a wall. and now, years later, after all the other things were burned away I sometimes drink a beer in my small apartment, and I open the window and close my eyes, letting the cold air and the taste of beer try to help me feel the way I felt then.
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