treatswords

Being fifteen was harder for me than most. I was an old, graying soul, stuck in a teenage body. I could feel connections before others did. Watching a plug-in slip into an outlet, yellow lights turning on.

The first time I met him, they were everywhere. Small bulbs hanging from his chin, green cord tucked behind his ear. Fuzzy lights stretched around fuzzy feelings.

I think he felt their warmth, his cheeks turning red when we passed one another in the hall. But he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t understand that finding the right connection, could light him up.

I carried a deep understanding for him with me. His past like stones in my pockets. I avoided large bodies of water, fearing the weight of it all would pull me under.

This boy drove a green truck. He was older, driver’s license tucked inside his wallet.

We spent a lot of time inside it. It’s smell clinging to my clothes, closet filled with pine needles and gasoline. My mom coming in to retrieve my dirty laundry, my hand stuffing the outfit under my bed. Gray seats and a rubber steering wheel collecting dust beneath. His blue eyes peeking out.

Our fling lasted until winter.

Negative temperatures freezing his heart. The warmth from our light was no match for this frigid cold. I pictured me pricking his heart with an ice pick, red slush falling at his feet.

His absence filled me with green. His trucks exterior paint floating in my blood stream. Cutting my finger on a notebook, emerald blood dampening the page.

The missing became it’s own entity, attached to me at my hip. It felt gritty, the way his hands used to. It was awkward and gangly, knocking things over as I passed, forcing me to sit down and catch my breath.

I started going for runs late at night. Shoes paddling down airport road, tiny airplane lights mimicking stars in the sky.

The moon pitied me, the girl who was too young to drive, running beneath its belly, trying to catch a glimpse of his green truck.

And I did spot it once.

It cruised past me, smooth as a blade of grass.

I turned to watch it go, tinted windows veiling its passenger.

I wonder if he looked in his rearview mirror, catching the glow emitting from the blonde girl bent in half, eyes gazing forward.

He sailed into the night without pause, taillights never breaking red.

I dreamt of him often.

The same re-occurring dream.

A pair of strangers inside a local gas station, reaching for the same jug of milk.

My eyes landing on a familiar, yet wrinkled face. Years had passed between us, but his hair was still as golden as straw and his ocean blue eyes still knew how to find their way to my shore.

We didn’t speak, only smiled.

The smile said it all for us.

We were.

We used to.

We had.

In the cool air of the cracked refrigerator door, I searched his eyes for a reflection of the golden light between us. A tiny spot inside his pupil.

But they were jet black and cold. I could feel my toes dipping into them, a deep shiver shooting up my spine.

He still couldn’t see it, the wires between us, warm from our energy, even years later.

I woke from that dream for the last time.

I could pull the sun down on a string, hanging it above us, and he still wouldn’t understand.

I knew the missing would become a scar; a pink mesh left from our third-degree burn.

But I could live with that.

I rolled over in bed and unplugged the light.

A loud clicking sound echoing across town, one last attempt to stay lit before flickering into darkness.

And from his window, a flash of lighting, quick and yellow, he stood up and drew the shades.