28 August, 2014

vii.

He was struck by her softness, scared as if somehow it would subsume him, like if he held her for too long he would begin sinking into her skin. To melt into the pillow of her embrace the way water envelopes everything it touches. He looked at the fullness of her, the happy gentle way the curves on her surface touched his spindle fingers. The sea that drew him out in the twilight hours of day. He would wade in ankle-deep; sometimes feeling brave, he'd let the waves lap at his knees.

misplaced

Desperate Tuesday nights: every revving engine turning into your ride home, every passing car another half hour stranded in the company of someone tapping his foot in anticipation of your departure. It wasn't always like this. 

Strange how much happens in the passenger seats of cars when you're eighteen. That age seems to coincide with internal vehicular tension, I mean heat. I mean drunken somewhat conversations, leaning against each other and eyes barely on the road, speaking in bodies, or something. But not tonight. Tonight, you're sitting at a gas station and he's unbuckling his seat belt and you're doing the same, first to mirror in response but also because you feel a little short of breath. You debate staying versus jumping out and walking to the nearest coffee shop or bar, anywhere well-lit and still populated, really. 

You think about everything that's happened and not happened in the last three months in all of five seconds. You have to sit in this car for another twenty minutes maybe, and for all that time you'll probably be wishing humans could manifest into another substance, something small enough to tuck into the crack on the right side of a glove compartment. At a loss, you try to make yourself as small as possible; you crumple your legs into the seat, fold your arms across your chest or tuck your hands under your thighs, try to rest your head against the window or just look down.  He's paying the gas station attendant. You think about jumping out again.There's still time. 

Sobering anxiety. You're flushed and pale at the same time and aren't quite sure how that is. This boy doesn't want you. He doesn't want you here.You're trying to figure out what to do with yourself, how do you perform an amputation in a car, how do you cut out the rotting ache before it sets. He's starting the engine you're bleeding all over the seat; it's going to take weeks to get out the stains.


You look really sad. 
Mmm.
I mean, you're really quiet. A lot quieter than usual.
Um well... how are you? How's everything?
Really? 
What do you want me to say--

resignation. hopeful for the dissolution of this body. and that i might forget this night ever happened.

~
Are you sad because of--? 
Yeah, a little. 
Do you want me to kill him for you?

i keep thinking it's stupid and that i shouldn't be sad, but i am. and i'm allowed to be sad. i'm allowed to be sad about you even if it makes me hate myself to be so childish.