The sound of rain was insufferable.
I walked outside and looked up at the sky, weeping as it spat on my face mockingly. The underpinnings of masochism seemed omnipotent on days like these. I was not the sort to let go or forget without a struggle.

My eyelashes were wet and heavy, my hair was dripping down my back–coiling up into designs of better times that lingered in my mind like an immutable shade of nightfall.

I could still remember the shape of his hand, the lines of his fingers as they curled around the steering wheel, the slope of his arm relative to my leg as he drove down the highway at 2 a.m.–lost in a thought that stole him from loving me.

“On a wave of Mutilation”

He stopped to take my picture as I stretched against the blue seat. Arms up, head tilted, red lipstick smeared across skin that was too young to belong to someone so cynical.

I couldn’t help but love him then.

We watched the sun rise through the windshield. The snow caught the light and glittered as we sped by.

I fell asleep with my hand on his leg and dreamed of summer.

And he drove faster,

Anxious to take me home.