Times Spent in a Car

 

            Now that I am, in a way, past that love you and I once had, I can logically think about it. It’s funny to talk about it now with anyone, mainly because I don’t usually and sub-levelly because I don’t believe in it anymore. When I think about you, I feel like a Bible-belt family shacked up in a hotel because their house was destroyed by a tornado just a few days ago. They cannot yet recognize it as such, but they know there was an ominous power in what occurred. It happened so suddenly, but it marks the rest of their existence like someone they love died, though everyone made it out unscathed. Ironically, milestones are never carved by monotonous days.

            I know in the basements of our minds, we both have daydreams—when we’re bored enough at work or when you’re high and alone in your bedroom—about some time in that indeterminate future where we will be sitting on some couch of undisclosed color, under a blanket, watching a movie on our list, like a normal couple. However, we paradoxically understand that they are just daydreams. We understand that regardless of our futile hope and well-wishing, we will continue talking like we don’t have these thoughts, like we are happy with the lives we are living, because that’s what we tell everyone who asks.

We will continue and perhaps one day meet up with thousands of stories to release, like dump trucks with so much refuse to pour onto one another. You’ll tell me where you’ve travelled to and all the crazy people you met. I’ll tell you I wish there was an angel assigned to each of us whose job is to document every thought and ironic instance in each worthwhile human’s brain. That when we die, I’ll hear the stories you forgot about, the ones I’ll love the most.

I’ll lie to make you feel better about your time spent in the world. We’ll be old and I know I won’t have to lie, but I will, because I’ll still want you to feel appreciated when you’re around me, like you always said you did when our skin was still tight and our nerves still felt everything in the world like it was the cautious fingers of a lover slowly moving down our necks. I see you dancing on your toes, knowing there is so much pain in that, but that is what you live for.