Laughing at a pace too fast for home
Too loud and bouyant
Energized with wided eyed faces

Racing into the darkening sky with familiar new smells
Of delicious new conversations to gorge on
Brilliant smiles like previously undiscovered stars in the night
Life has beckoned and I have answered it

Walking on to old ground but detoured time and again
From what we knew to chance encounters
Which emblazon the night with unexpected connections
Holding us true to our celebration and hurdling us toward the sun

Turn, turn, turn wretched Earth, speed your time
Steal this night before we are ready
Take from me the joy I share, release your winds
Scatter us like bats on the first morning rays

Upon finding my today's home say goodbye
And just like the good times, this rushes by
So much too fast I can't sponge any more

Off they go like lightning spurred
Suddenly met and permanently spent
As all of the sweetest tastes can usually be

Like the mango custard water ice on dark streets at late hours
May the taste on my soul fade slower
Than the tastes I've enjoyed on my tongue tonight.

Background

Watch this poem be written in real time here: http://justin.etherpad.com/ep/pad/view/53/latest

Awesome vacation weekend in Philly. I wrote this from a borrowed laptop while laying in my couch surfing residence. Saturday my friend showed me around all of downtown Philadelphia. He pointed out the Constitution Center, the Comcast Tower, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (where Rocky made his successful ascension of the stairs), Love park and a bunch more. He was an awesome tour guide.

Later that same night we hung out with his girlfriend and her co-workers at a great beer tasting event. We all had beer and tons of food and were loud and obnoxious and generally just had a blast.

Today, Keith and I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art which is just gargantuan. Serio. Just huge. It also had a ton of stairs which my feet are still bitching at me about. We got to see some awesome Monets.. Monet is so much more beautiful in person than on a print. I took some pictures but I'm sure they won't do the art justice. There was also this huge Rothko, which was very cool because I've never seen an original Rothko that was huge. There's one Rothko at SAM (Seattle Art Museum) but it is pretty small compared to the works he's really known for.

Then tonight I went out to dinner at a place called "Hibachi" with Keith, his girlfriend, and one of her friends from college. It's like Benihauna but better. Well.. Benihauna's food might be a little better but the overall experience is much better at Hibachi. The chefs do tricks that are actually impressive not just lame/corny. ;)

After that we went out to Dave & Busters and tried to earn some tickets. Keith and his girlfriend earned over 7,000 tickets, his girlfriend's friend earn like 1,000-something, and I earned 450. [Justin flexes momentarily] Then we went out in search of dessert and actually got two: One was frozen yogurt that was like REAL yogurt frozen in soft serve form and the other was this Gelato/flavored-ice dessert with a custard gelato topping and also a custard gelato bottom inside the drink at a place called Anita's (I think). As we walked around, we ran into a couple of other friends of theirs and hung with them for a bit.

Overall it was a ton of fun and had me wishing every night could be this good.