I could have been dressed in uniform, walking that shiny tiled hallway in pressed deep-grey polyester pants, a generic navy blazer over a starched white shirt, tie tightened and new shoes worn down as I left Mr. Harrington's English class bound for a lesser classroom with lesser prospects. You might have looked my way in your snobbish way and your brow may have furrowed, but that was because language was little more to you than a fishhook you cast in shallow waters to reel in anyone not slippery enough to flop free. Then again, you might have looked my way in your wide-eyed way and your lips might have parted, but that was because you saw in me a champion and feared your loneliness as you would a sleeping tiger, never daring to make a sound lest you wake it, fearing most of all how dreadful the death if you should run. I saw things you didn't. I knew things you wouldn't.
I could have been dressed in torn jeans, a white t-shirt, crossing desert lots at night under clear western skies, the bright alien glow of my home town laughing as it swallowed stars without permission, winking as if I were a bawling infant, impotent to challenge the ruse. I may have laughed. I may have looked to the sky and winked back, just as I winked at you that day in the hall. The precision of these events matters little, for at that moment, everything was clear. I was a child of fourteen, walking. My steps tapped a rhythm. One foot displaced the other, propelling me forward, and it seemed that tiny eddies of earth rose in their wake, escaping the shackles of gravity. My voice sounded a song. One word followed another, pushing me deeper, and it seemed that an ethereal lattice of deep red, icy green and electric blue fireflies flowed from my mouth... You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last... All the wisdom of beauty, becoming and dying flickered with them. I owned the song, I still own the song, though it was a gift.
Take some time and share with us a personal Dylan moment. Anyone can be my friend, but I'll only accept comments that share a story, something powerful. Give it a shot. Make it for everybody.
