I hit my headlights and shifted gears
like a knife through hot butter,
trailing the freeway,
and passing small towns and cars
as though they stood
still in an irreparable excuse
of timeless memories.
I sipped cold coffee
to chase fatigue to sleep.
Smudged portraits of Kinsley
and I surfaced
back before she took me for granted.
Kinsley left for Seattle.
We grew up in a dust bowl
three hours away.
It’s been three years,
but her mother told me
where she lived,
and that I should visit her.
I was scared to leave.
Kinsley said she couldn’t stay.
We attended the same high school.
I caught her attention
when I teased her in a cooking class.
We made a cherry pie
and I slid one into her backpack
when the office called her for smoking
in the girl’s bathroom.
She opened her back in English
and shook her fist with my name on her lips.
Kids laughed, but she didn’t.
After school, she approached me
with crinkled eyes that whipped flames.
She grabbed my neck.
I crossed my eyes
and asked if she could squeeze harder.
Kinsley broke character and laughed.
I brought my attention back to the road
as the sun fell below the horizon.
I thumped my thumb
along the steering wheel
as the speakers pushed rock
lyrics through the stereo.
I had it just loud enough
for me to think
of what I’d lost when I lost
what we had because my mind
had its way of thinking,
but I wrestled with not listening
to the authentic part of me.
Cynicism won the battle of ideas.
I moved through the Seattle traffic
and took a few wrong turns
until I found her house.
I parked on the sidewalk across the street.
Kinsley’s blinds reflected her figure
in the window.
She smiled and waved me inside
and into her life again.
She knew I was coming.
Her mother told her
I couldn’t live without her.