NIGHTS OF CABIRIA

when Cabiria is in the grass staring beyond the air, or the ending, what did you make of it - when he takes her to the bluff that looks like Peebles and the glow is unbelievable, she thinks he is saving her but then realizes he could kill her, but he can’t and she cries into the dirt, sleeps in a pile, she is a pile, sleeps in the mineral depths of despair, then wakes to walk through the woods to the road where kids are on bikes playing instruments, they loop around her paying no mind oblivious that her heart has been grated/abandoned once more, but she is life spirit a spirit of life not holy or an angel just a creature with electricity, she joins their parade through the trees and her eyes light up, fearful and awake, she reminds me of a friend who i don’t know as much anymore, someone i found when i needed her, we both needed to talk about the same demons who lived in our neighborhood we both needed to forgive someone for not being able to be around, we were easy with each other every flake and lateness forgiven, shrieked regularly at each other’s singular knowing, we were shorter than each other, Cabiria-short in trousers experimenting with hiding or showing, i told her how my tall boyfriend in college told me my other short friend and I how unfair it was, for us to be short and him to be tall, how he’d stand out forever, how we could shimmy through the night, investigate the party without being noticed, but anyone can get swallowed by the bacchanal, anyone can betray,  Cabiria whose eyes grew back to their fullness after the sobbing and the blinks, after picking herself up from the pile, watching the others march towards salvation or euphoria, claiming them possible fools but also tracking their trance and for a moment, merging