Pastel

The sunsets are long here, drawn out dusks that fade into night, as if saving their splendor for another night when maybe you aren't watching. You walk the dog at twilight, in the precise moment when deer and rabbits turn the color of the air, it's a clever wilderness, the dog loses her mind. Above your 7000 feet climb into the air, the sky turns pastel, pinks and lavenders and mints, you still remember the 80s too well to want them back. None of this pierces you. 

You came to the mountains to be pierced. 

A swelling moon rises, and the dogs of the neighborhood begin their crooked symphony. You feel contained indoors, feel restrained, you want to howl at the moon, too, but you keep the doors closed to keep at least your dog quiet. It's a weird claustrophobia. You miss the cacophony of Alphabet City nights. How well you slept to its melody. 

The dog barks at the glass doors. The night grows dark around you, a full moon hiding behind those forever clouds stretching across the valley. Everywhere you turn, pine trees, reaching for you with their spindly darkness, their heavy winters. You miss New Mexico, miss Montana, miss Red Hook with its Liberty sunsets. You wonder what you've come to Colorado to learn. 

You know you haven't learned it yet.
And so you cannot leave.