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I keep waking up in different
beds and in this same
body. I have to say this
right away so you know
it didn't start with limbs
slackened, hair
oily, a cruelty towards
the sun. It started
in the backseat of Jessica's
Pepto-dismal truck. She
tied my hair back with
rubber bands when
the freeway passed clean
through us. Jessica says
I can feel like a cherry
blossom tree wobbling
under lightning. Jessica
has a forehead scar from
the deep end of a pool. I
ask Jessica what drowning
feels like and she says
not everything feels like
something else. That night
we lose the 7/11 lottery
but I draw my lucky
number, no quarters
so we scratch our tickets
with fingernails. Jessica says
that's the sanctity of ritual—
a ceaselessness in how
I look at every drop
of rain before it touches
ground, the way Jessica
mouths my name in her
sleep eating each syllable like
a minor god. I'm coming out
as someone who loves
things unevenly, my theologies
strewn out in the dark,
this iPhone an almost oracle.
Jessica forces me to watch
every sunset even when I
am full. She puts her fingers
in my mouth and says open
your eyes. Open them.
You see the small-town girls
on big billboards? One day
that's us. |