Work Text:
Sometimes I take your car out for a drive.
I pick days that are sunny, when the sky is powder blue.
Today is one of those days.
I feel the leather of the wheel slide over the smooth skin of my fingers.
Fingers not like yours.
Your fingers were rough from the pushing of buttons, from the jostle of a joy stick, and sometimes, from the caressing of my skin.
Your fingers were strong.
You used to lace our fingers together and I’d watch the tan skin turn white around your knuckles.
I never felt so grounded.
Lithe fingers like mine were made for writing, not gripping the steering wheel of your baby.
I watch the golden sun kiss the hood of the car.
I’m driving out on the coast, your favorite route.
The cherry red makes me think of the coca cola logos in the 70’s.
My fingers skirt over the dash.
Sometimes I think about how your hands used to move against me like they did this dash.
Sometimes I think about how willing I was to go on drives with you because I hoped you’d pull over and make love to me.
But, I never told you that.
I just let you touch me.
I let you take all of the risks.
I couldn’t do it.
I’m a coward.
The salty sea air fills that car and I think about that time we went to the beach.
I watched you leave your game in the car and walk out towards the water.
You stood where the waves were breaking and I thought they’d pull you under.
You wadded out further and further away from me.
I felt so small.
You went under and I waited.
But, you weren't coming up and I ran out to you.
I pulled you from the water, screaming at you for being so stupid.
I was so scared.
After I pulled you back onto the sand your laughter was a song of broken coughing and wheezing.
I asked you why, could you not swim?
And you said yes, you could swim, but you just wanted to feel something bigger than yourself.
You reached out and turned my rosary over in your hand.
I didn’t understand.
Later, under a powder blue sky catching fire by a setting sun you told me that you didn’t believe in God but that I was your religion and if I believe in something higher then there had to be something to it.
The tiny red rosary that hangs from the mirror, twinkling in the sun light as I drive, was a gift I got you shortly after that trip.
You kissed me.
I love you so much.
I’m dying.
The tires are new; everything about this car is perfect.
It took you months to restore it and customize it.
I told you it was gaudy and looked like something out of those dumb videogames with high speed chases and robbers.
I never could beat you at any of them, so I refused to play.
Now, these newly upholstered leather seats are a shrine to the countless nights we spent sleeping and eating while on the job.
It was also where you pushed me down and kissed me breathless after you ate my last chocolate bar.
No, Hershey is not a substitute for Godiva.
Your lips are far sweeter than any confection created by the hand of man.
I bit your tongue and you bruised my hips.
I’m so sorry.
I’m not worthy.
The birds were singing when we woke up.
I felt free.
Oh God, I’m so sorry.
I’m not a religion if you’re not there to worship me.
The passenger seat is occupied only by a pack of Marlboros and orange tinted goggles.
They slide with every turn, making the only sounds outside the thumping of my heart and the nagging voice of guilt in the back of mind.
I’m disgusting.
I’m so sorry.
I take a cigarette and look at my bone white fingers, turn it around before I light it.
The smoke burns inside my mouth and curls around filling every inch of me.
You’re the only thing that could ever fill all of me.
It tastes like the inside of your cheeks, smells like your clothes.
Why would anyone ever choose to smoke?
So many times I asked you to stop, told you it would kill you.
Every time, a turn of the head, lopsided grin, and a puff of grey smoke wafting over a row of perfectly straight teeth would cause my breath to hitch.
You’d purr “Baby, I’m not going to live long enough for this to kill me.”
One time I asked you to elaborate on that.
Why wasn’t it?
What would?
You didn’t reply and I went to bed, only to feel you straddle my hips hours later.
You leaned down over me to whisper hotly against the skin of my neck “вы. вы убьете меня.”
Then you licked down my throat like an animal, goggle-less and pupils blown wide.
You wanted me, submissive and needy.
My fingers traced the sides of your stomach and I marveled at your form.
Some people are art and you’re a masterpiece.
I’m so sorry.
I ruined it.
The shirt you were wearing before I lifted it over your shoulders was the same cherry red assaulting my peripherals right now.
I just continue to drive, our spot coming up.
Your name is on my lips; my one true and only prayer.
I couldn’t have been your religion, I did a poor job.
I’m so sorry; I’ll try to make it up to you now.
The spot is close; the road is nothing but a trail on the side of wave beaten cliffs.
Coming up is a break in the guard rail.
Maybe this is what you meant.
My tears are holy water, cleansing away the sin of living without you.
My lips move not to say Hail Mary full of grace but to trace the letters of your name, give them shape, give them life.
My voice is a song of you, a deep wail that conveys all the emotions I’ve ever wanted to express to you in one last hymn of the ages.
My hands hold tightly not to the written word of God, but to hand held console you swore on.
This final act is my requiem, my mass to usher you and I into the unknown.
I veer off the cliff and time slows down.
Before my eyes are flashes of your smile, your eyes, that red shirt crumpled on the floor, the look of your sealed lips when I saw my scarred face for the first time,
that red hair sticky with snow when you showed up at the home, and the face I saw this morning at 5 a.m. when you pulled me towards you and said that it was
all going to be fine and we’d be okay.
“я тебя люблю” was my breathy confession made at the altar of your lips.
But, now you’re dead and I’m dying.
I’m burning alive and dreaming about a death I could actually stomach, a death I’d rather experience.
I can’t believe I’m going to die like this.
I can’t believe that if I have to die I can’t die with you in that classic baby you spent our first pay check on.
It’s so hot in here.
I’d rather keep pretending.
So now, I hit the water.
I welcome the water into my mouth, not smoke.
I feel the sting of salt water on my skin, not the lick of flames.
I sink deeper into the blue water, not the darkness of a collapsing building.
I feel the graze of your lips on my temple instead of smoldering splinters, smell red bull on your breath after playing games all night instead of sulfur, and I lament covered in ash like the pages of Leviticus because you may have deemed me a religion but you were my savior.
There’s only one thing I don’t have to pretend as I start to fade; I clutch the hand held console I slipped into my pocket this morning to my heart because that’s where you live.
You live in me, in my soul, in my very being, consuming all of me.
I never meant to get you killed.
I’m so sorry.