she was dressing in front of the vanity mirror beside me. i watched her glue her eyelashes to to her lids and pull the wig on with special care to land the bangs in precisely the perfect spot on her forhead. she was beautiful then.
she took my hand and held it through the music. i swayed in time to the words that shook me from the inside. later i watched her dance from a distance. tall, alone, out of place, stunning. a small hint of jealously, and then love. i miss her now.
there was a time when i was 21, when the four of us sat in dumpy cafe in wyoming, discussing our plans for a long trip to europe. i snuck into the bathroom and chopped out lines on the back of a toilet. i sucked them up and tucked the razor blade in my coat pocket.
last year he said he missed the old me. the one in the diner with curly hair and puffy cheeks. i got too thin, too high strung, lost my sense of humor. i didn’t make them laugh the way i used to.
but then, narrowed down to three, i didn’t have much to hold onto anymore.
two of us left for texas, the other two to college. i got knocked up, you got educated. i got left behind and the rest of you built a life. the kind i watch with envy. ever so slightly resentful.
that i am so much older and have nothing at all.
oh but those were the days. and nights. when we slept in cheap motels and made love under cheap lamps and ate cream with plastic forks that later ran down from the container and onto the orange shag carpet while we slept and melted into and out of our stupid teenage dreams.
we barbequed bagels at the park in the middle of january. joy division, dramarama, skinny puppy….songs that swirled and sucked and sang us to sleep in the backseat of a car that was too small and dirty.
and you regret leaving.
and i regret staying.
and we will never read posters upside down and backwards from your red satin sheets in a dingy little town again.
KRAP KRAD OOT
because we fell apart and our dreams died in kansas under a full moon and a blanket of highway noise that tricked us into believing love was a one way ticket to heaven.
no layovers. no lost luggage. no wrong turns.
but then again. we read upside down and backwards.
And translation such as that is easily misinterpreted.