Jan 2013
1. I realized I could love him again.
2. It was after the accident. After the windshield turned to dust on the pavement in a pool of oil and gasoline, glimmering in the oncoming headlights. After the hoarse screams and the crunch of metal folding over itself like a paper fan. After the seatbelt tore the skin off my chest leaving bloodstains on my shirt and a ringing in my ears. It was even after the cops came and arrested the drunk driver who hit us head-on at five o'clock on a Wednesday evening, after the tow truck came and flipped her car right side up again, watching empty bottles fall from the open windows as it turned. After all of this, in the silence of the aftermath, I sat on his couch with his head in my lap. I traced my finger across the skin that stretched over his hipbone and listened to his rhythmic breathing as his lips curled slightly upwards. I imagined he was dreaming of days that didn’t end in shattered glass and tears. The calm, steady rise and fall of his ribcage as his cheek left an impression in meat of my thigh, safe. In the silence of the aftermath, I realized.
3. The next morning, I woke up with my head in the crook of his arm, my left hand asleep from the weight of my body on top of it. The impression of my earring was stamped into the soft skin inside his elbow. I turned to face him and lazily draped an arm across his chest, remembering that last night I had decided to love him again. I smiled. I lifted my head to speak, but he turned away and without saying a word, walked half –naked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. In the silence, as I stared at the impression of his cheek in his pillow, I realized. His love lay there, in the glimmering pool of glass and gasoline, still spreading in the middle of the pavement.
2. It was after the accident. After the windshield turned to dust on the pavement in a pool of oil and gasoline, glimmering in the oncoming headlights. After the hoarse screams and the crunch of metal folding over itself like a paper fan. After the seatbelt tore the skin off my chest leaving bloodstains on my shirt and a ringing in my ears. It was even after the cops came and arrested the drunk driver who hit us head-on at five o'clock on a Wednesday evening, after the tow truck came and flipped her car right side up again, watching empty bottles fall from the open windows as it turned. After all of this, in the silence of the aftermath, I sat on his couch with his head in my lap. I traced my finger across the skin that stretched over his hipbone and listened to his rhythmic breathing as his lips curled slightly upwards. I imagined he was dreaming of days that didn’t end in shattered glass and tears. The calm, steady rise and fall of his ribcage as his cheek left an impression in meat of my thigh, safe. In the silence of the aftermath, I realized.
3. The next morning, I woke up with my head in the crook of his arm, my left hand asleep from the weight of my body on top of it. The impression of my earring was stamped into the soft skin inside his elbow. I turned to face him and lazily draped an arm across his chest, remembering that last night I had decided to love him again. I smiled. I lifted my head to speak, but he turned away and without saying a word, walked half –naked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. In the silence, as I stared at the impression of his cheek in his pillow, I realized. His love lay there, in the glimmering pool of glass and gasoline, still spreading in the middle of the pavement.
