Coney Island in the off season. It’s gray and bleak, the rides wet from the rain, the lights turned off. Everything is in slow motion here. Time stops for hours and hours. Nothing bad can happen in this world. It’s so somber, yet so peaceful.

It’s here that we come every day. We swing on the swings and spin on the spinner ride until we are so filled with euphoria, so filled with laughter and ready to throw up. We run around the park laughing, acting like we did when we were little kids and Coney Island was actually open for the season.

But we’re teenagers now, too old for the childish rides, as our parents tell us every summer. But we don’t care, we are happy, ecstatic. We just lay on the spinner as it spins, faster and faster, staring up at the stars. Such a beautiful night. We speak to the heavens, sharing our deepest fears with the moon, the empty park, with God.

I feel closest to myself her, in the empty park. It’s just so much better in the winter when it’s closed. I feel invincible. I feel infinite.