Car Ride

By Rachelle King

Accumulation of distance gradually built up cement walls
thought processes bickered aloud once again
like spoiled child and parent in the super market,
we chat:
You jest at my seriousness.
Pretending to retaliate,
I raise eyebrows
aiming
stabbing and gouging
reopening my own wounds,
picking scabs off the surface
of adolescent, once apprehensive, epidermis.
Fully aware of the bed fault has made to lie in
I pin the blame to your always-plaid shirt.
Liquid sustenance drains
from the place where your heart should be.

Resenting the swell of remorse in my left eye
I concentrate on my right eye’s ability to focus
on the relevance of my future.

Among this chaotic exchange of shooting and ducking
behind those walls
hazy realization drifts amid gun smoke:
I always embrace this revolving game of cat and mouse
chasing your deceptive ideology around in circles.
Enjoying another race compliments the ever-closer suicide
of my rehabilitation skills.

Resenting the swell of remorse in my left eye
I concentrate on my right eye’s ability to focus
on the relevance of my future.

Conversation halts at late night traffic jam.
Aggravation expels heavy sigh from your throat.
Recollecting this sound in a different context
forces open a flow:
Cascading memories of bare skin
bronzed by sunlight dancing through a cigarette burn
in plastic curtains.
I pretended to be cold when I shuttered,
fluffing up my dilapidated collar.
The sequence of memories was a reminder
of exchanged agreement:
“FRIENDS ONLY” POLICY NOW IN EFFECT.
Civil greetings must now substitute for mushy clichés.
Traffic began to convulse forward.
Verbal thought could not mimic the vessel’s motion
Beams of reflection uniformly prevented traveling pods of thought
from colliding.

Resenting the swell of remorse in my left eye
I concentrate on my right eye’s ability to focus
on the relevance of…

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