She is furious at a bicycle that goes nowhere, and I could kiss her for it.
Forty of them in a dark room, standing on pedals, faces shining, a woman in front shouting numbers into a headset like a captain steering a ship through weather only they can see. The music is too loud. It thrums up through the floor, and I remember, dimly, the way loud sound used to sit in the chest like a second heartbeat.
They are all sweating. They hate this. I can tell by the jaws, the closed eyes, the towels wrung and re-draped. Every one of them chose to be here, paid to be here, set an alarm to be here, and every one of them wishes it were over.
Oh, stay. Stay in the part you are wishing away.
The thighs that burn, that is being alive. The lungs dragging at the thick warm air, the salt stinging the eye, the little tremor in the arm reaching for the water bottle, the calf you will curse tomorrow on the stairs, all of it, all of it is the body doing the only thing it was ever for.
When the lights come up they will groan and stretch and complain to each other about how brutal that was, and file out into the cold, hair wet, faces pink, hearts going like drums.
Go be sore. Go stand under hot water and feel it find every muscle. Go ache your beautiful ache all the way home.
I would ride that stupid bicycle forever, if someone would only let me tire.