A Dissection of Dante, For Better or Worse

There was a lift here, some kind of divide I wasn't expecting---

and I was feeling really good about it when I went through the doors

But when we went from 1-60 and I went to 61, I heard my ears pop

with thoughts of a night when I wasn't alone in this box up here,

when I wasn't confined to being something I wasn't

There was a night, long ago, when you pressed the buttons,

but you kept them from lighting up like a Christmas tree---

so that ride could be ours and ours alone

We were something else in our ascents

and in our aspirations

and in the way we put priorities in the forefront

and then took to our rack focusing

We were almost too much for our own good

until we were

And then I was out here looking in at the mirrored box

and I saw your washed out reflection staring me in the eyes

just before you began your descent

I had no interest in hitting rock bottom

or seeing the ground floor

or retrieving any of our snowglobes from the bellhop

And that way, with this grand and perforated stomach between us,

we can avoid this flooding---