I.

“I don’t want to see one more stalk of corn in my life.”
I folded my arms, propped my feet up on the dash. 

Running away from itself,
road rushed beneath our feet.

 

She swerved left, away from the exit. “Me either.”
McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, speed limit 65—

she was pushing eighty, easy.

 

With the clouds dipping their noses to the ground,
sneezing dew onto the grass,

we shoved the cooler lid closed

and let the white and yellow ribbons

guide us across the map.

 

II.

Her teeth sunk into my ear, her fingers into my wrists,
a brick wall massaging my shoulders.

A hymn on her tongue,

she summoned blood to my cheeks.

 

We were not in love.

 

Drinking holy water she bought at a Citgo,

we giggled at the thought of our bodies rejecting
a foreign soul;

we would go to a hell I did not believe in

and one she wasn’t sure too sure of.

 

I loved her, but we were not in love.

​

III.

Every step felt like a step in the wrong direction,
an ankle wrenched to the side;

I tripped on my own bent knee,

tumbled forward, a click in my bones.

I hoisted my heavy head,
only to have it slapped down,
her hand open and loose.

 

Ignoring my lips on her cheek,

she pushed past, purple lipstick slurred
over her mouth and the bottle’s.

“Did you finish this?”

 

Not then, but give me time
and I would.