I Love That Scent

I have a memory of a time when I felt free. I'm not sure if I really was or not, but let's not get into semantics. It was a warm evening in Hollywood, that time of night when the light is special. My best friend and my boyfriend and I had negotiated a deal with each other. We were walking down the street. Actually Lira was running and jumping and turning. Her long golden brown hair was alive in the air, silky, flowing with her movements. I was walking by Valkyrie's side and we were talking in a way that didn't matter. What I mean is it didn't matter what we were saying, because it was all okay. He was a big guy and I think we felt like his sisters in some moments. He had a long brown ponytail and a beard. He told me he did par kor among other things. I'm not sure we were in love, but we were comfortable around each other. So Lira was dancing down the sidewalk, and in that light, in that moment we were adventuring. The palm trees on that street were so tall and they were probably blowing in the wind. There were birds of paradise and some night blooming jasmine. We were moving fast and spontaneously. My mind was easy. I was free.
Then we went to 7-Eleven and got money out of the ATM. Money that I didn't have. I had the money, but I didn't. I feel like the best moment is passed. I don't want to talk about what happened next. It wasn't horrible, but I wasn't free anymore. Maybe I felt like I was in a grand delusion. Too bad. At first it was Lira I remembered more, but now it's Valkyrie's presence I feel. A very protective person with a lot of emotion in his brown eyes. A person I would be eaten alive by now in my opinion. Or perhaps I'm wrong. Is it possible to be eaten alive and protected at the same time? I think so. I'm afraid of that. With good reason.
I think about the future, which is an exercise in futility, and I know it won't be like the pictures I see in my head. The pictures change a lot depending on the people I'm closest to. One thing is for certain. There is no rush to get anywhere anymore. I'm here. I'm working on my life and I have the power to make so many things go the way I want them to. The other things I can leave as surprises for myself. Or rather the world will hopefully surprise me, as it does every day, with strange moments, horrible insights and the chance to grow. I may not feel free right now. But given the human mind I can teleport to that time on the sidewalk in Hollywood. I can see Lira's hair, I know what it looked like, but I can't find the words. And I can feel V and what he represents, alive, there and also somehow here. I remember myself the least, I was internalized, because I was witnessing them with so much of myself. But if I go back to the same memory too many times, the potency fades and the color drains out of it and I lose it, except for some movement. But if I leave it alone sometimes when I go back it's there again, brilliant as ever, and I find freedom and I love that scent.