How Can You Close a Mountain?

"The mountain is closed, Miss. You need to leave."

My friend and I sat flabbergasted. We had pulled over to the side of the road
into where the mountain opened itself wide enough to let some travelers through.

We were having one of those nights
where we wanted to get away.
Away from people,
from yellow, pink, orange, glowing streetlights marking
the miles we had ran in the other direction.
It was evening. It was cold. We sat in her car, looking through the sun roof at the stars.

They reminded me of that field of fireflies I once stumbled into not twenty feet away from where we were parked.
That was less than four months ago.
We had once tried to capture their twinkling stars with your camera
but we went back too late
and found a dark field in its place.

It was ironic in a way that the sun roof had stars
or at least it was called a sun roof this night
because there was nothing sunny about it.
My friend and I were commiserating over our latest lovers,
and how involvement with unstable people is really fun
until it's not.
Until that tingling of emotion is creeping up the leg, up the spine...
It bites your ear
softly, chewing its way through to your heart muscle;
and then it's too late. It was entangled in my tree branch lungs stinging worse than any smoke.

I knew better,
because this hot mess express bus did not intentionally run me over.
They were just going through that "phase" and we were a beautiful head on collision
like the fireflies in that field
like the stardust cascading around Saturn,
that I would do again
and again
if only they would let me.
If it was only about them.

Tonight my friend and I decided to stop,
pull the car over and into the mountain's opening
while gazing at the infinite possibilities in the sky,
when interrupting blue lights flashed us upright.

"Miss, what are you doing here tonight?"

Well officer, we are talking and looking at the sky.
He looked perplexed, like he couldn't imagine one reason why anyone would ever want to do that.

"The mountain is closed, Miss. You need to leave."