Give Time

The lights skipped around them, pulsing to the beats in their feet, and shadows fell across their faces with a turn of the chin.  Her world was swirling.  A go-go dancer swung her hips next to her and the light from some Christmas tree tutu blinded harsh against her pale skin.  She danced.  Her shoulders swayed and her body rolled, feeling as electric as the neon lasers that colored the walls.  She didn’t have much of a conscience then, her self-awareness beaten out of her by the rhythm of the bass and the pace of the space.  

Her toes began to tingle, a disconnect ran from her limbs to her mind, and his fingertips grazed against her bare skin.  He motioned for her to follow, his other hand finding the small of her back as he led her across the dancefloor, possession and aggression in his steps.  He was being protective.  

A cigarette dangled between his lips as the cool air tousled her hair and swept across his forehead.  She leaned into him, his arm winding itself around her and his warmth cascading over her exposed skin.  They’d never had this much contact before.  They’d never felt this sense of belongingness.  They’d never been together.

The others knew who she was.  She was his.  He never said it and she never acknowledged it, but it was evident in the subtle touches and lasting looks that, in this moment, her self belonged in the etches of his fingerprints.  She was nothing but an attachment onto his image, a continuation of the scene, the underground.

As he drove her home, his hand brushed against hers, the small, pinky finger interlocking with the delicacy of a forgotten moment, and his eyes focused forward, acknowledgement falling flat between them.  She didn’t say anything.  Her fingers twitched beneathe his, running little circles into the palm of his hand, and a small smile pulled against her frown.

He was silent.  The car rolled to a stop in front of her suburban home and the engine quit, matching the stillness of the frozen neighborhood.  Her body turned towards him, a muttered “Goodnight” escaping her tongue as his arms wrapped around her in a last embrace.  She did not look into his eyes.  She did not linger in his hold.  The world was gray and quiet, and her body felt cold, dry, and heavy.  There was not a thing to say.  

So, she exited the vehicle, stepping towards her tall, locked front door with her gaze stuck forward.  She walked inside and he drove away, the night already fading into morning.  

The day after graduation, I think I’m going to dye my hair blue.

The things I’ve lost in the last 14 days are piling at my doorstep.  They come with shattered opportunity and are tied together with the ribbon of disappointment.  There isn’t much to do with them now.  My speech lies on wrinkled paper.  The number “2” is plastered on the wall behind it and the scholarships I’ve lost are wilting to the floor.  Prom night is a distant memory already.  

I can hardly remember what the ground looks like anymore, if it ever used to shine, glow, or glimmer.  I can’t remember if I could see myself in it, if there was ever a reflection, or if it always looked so cold and dry.  It’s covered with the dust of old hopes now, stained with promises of things long since forgotten.  The letters he wrote me lay there too.  They sit next to the text messages I’ve ripped out and the words torn from my mouth.  

I set the match.  The flames rise and lick, catching the paper and running with heat.  It dances, searing through space with a violence that breeds in red, and I watch from the side, unmoving and inadequate, as it burns to the ground, melting my heart along with it.  

I’m not exactly sure when it happened.  It was sometime between the bedroom lights and your car door that the moments lost not speaking didn’t seem to matter anymore.  I think it might have been the strawberry fields you took me to at three o’clock in the morning or the late night donut runs with your cousin.  It may have been our something talks or the minutes you saved me from losing my voice in a crowd of people.  And because I can’t remember, it also might have been your sweater, which I stole for a year and never washed because I didn’t want it to stop smelling of you. 

There was a point in time when his name was engrained into the tips of her fingers and his face burned on the underside of her eyelids.  Now she falls asleep, forgetting the voice that used to fill her world.