Before and After Everything

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“You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn’s not expanding!”
“It won’t be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy,
and we’ve got to try to enjoy ourselves while we’re here!”

Everything is what you strain to see from the car window as you’re weighed down by a bulky seat,
and the handle won’t stop taunting because you’re alone and curious and don’t know what will happen if you pull it.

Everything is your block, and it ends hard when you reach the step down to painted-on white lines at every corner.

Everything is a cul de sac, where you can go anywhere without ever crossing a single street, were there anywhere to go.

Everything is the wide open road, courtesy of a used Dodge Caravan with
a scratched, shale-green metallic clearcoat finish, and it’s old enough that you still have to
open all of the doors yourself.  Baby, you can drive my car.

Everything is the right tools for a mind’s wasting:
a ticket to anywhere
an assumption you won’t be there
and enough that everyone can smoke.

Everything is the one person who loves you too,
but there’s not a lot else to say on that.

Everything is the mostly empty space outside of our atmosphere
and the unending depth of neural connections inside of our skulls.

Everything is the universe,
fifteen billion years old with maybe twenty billion to go
until a new dimension grows out from a small spot in ours
and expands.