Postcards From No Man's Land
Crash
I grew my hair out. Not long and stringy like yours, but sort of wavy and over my eyes. Then I straightened it with Mom’s iron and I spiked it up in the back the way you told me guys at the clubs you went to did their hair.
I put on my favorite ratty Anthrax t-shirt and turned my radio to Black Flag. Mom always told me that that shirt was more of a rag than a piece of clothing. She didn’t realize that the reason I wore it so often that it was practically falling apart was because you’d given it to me.
I knew you would come into my bedroom. You liked to go out drinking with your “friends”, but you always came to me first to say goodnight. Once, you came home falling-down drunk and smelling of sex and vomit and girl’s perfume like the Garden of Eden. I had to take care of you because you were throwing up all over your clothes and the kitchen floor, and I didn’t want you to pass out and drown in your own puke. That night you admitted to me that you always envisioned yourself crashing whenever you got behind the wheel of a car. You said you could see the flash of headlights, and then nothing at all.
I’d never seen a dead person before, but to me it looked like you were already gone. It scared me more than that time you ran away from home when you were eight. At least you came home after half a day. Now I thought you were to far gone to come back to me.
You told me you didn’t want to have left this planet Earth without having said goodnight to me first. Goodnight, never goodbye. You said you wouldn’t want to crash without me knowing that you loved me. I didn’t understand.
Now I do.
I understand that all those times that you envisioned yourself crashing, you were crashing the car on purpose. You wanted that loss of control to happen, just as much as you wanted the alcohol to cushion your fall. You wanted that loss of control because it proved that we were real. We, because I knew I was a part of it.
You came into my bedroom and you said, I’m going now, Mikey. Stay cool and don’t do drugs. And don’t worry about me, because I’ll see you in the morning. I promise I’ll be the sunshine on your face, and when the sun goes down I’ll be the moonshine on your skin.
I always loved your cheesy eloquence, even when it was sarcastic. You kept me waiting for morning like nothing else could.
I’m going now. Goodnight, never goodbye.
I waited for morning. The sun came up, but it wasn’t morning because you were supposed to be there in the morning, and your room was empty. The day passed, but morning did not come. And then the phone call came instead, and night came crashing down without any moonshine on my skin. There was no skin there at all.
I put on my favorite ratty Anthrax t-shirt and turned my radio to Black Flag. Mom always told me that that shirt was more of a rag than a piece of clothing. She didn’t realize that the reason I wore it so often that it was practically falling apart was because you’d given it to me.
I knew you would come into my bedroom. You liked to go out drinking with your “friends”, but you always came to me first to say goodnight. Once, you came home falling-down drunk and smelling of sex and vomit and girl’s perfume like the Garden of Eden. I had to take care of you because you were throwing up all over your clothes and the kitchen floor, and I didn’t want you to pass out and drown in your own puke. That night you admitted to me that you always envisioned yourself crashing whenever you got behind the wheel of a car. You said you could see the flash of headlights, and then nothing at all.
I’d never seen a dead person before, but to me it looked like you were already gone. It scared me more than that time you ran away from home when you were eight. At least you came home after half a day. Now I thought you were to far gone to come back to me.
You told me you didn’t want to have left this planet Earth without having said goodnight to me first. Goodnight, never goodbye. You said you wouldn’t want to crash without me knowing that you loved me. I didn’t understand.
Now I do.
I understand that all those times that you envisioned yourself crashing, you were crashing the car on purpose. You wanted that loss of control to happen, just as much as you wanted the alcohol to cushion your fall. You wanted that loss of control because it proved that we were real. We, because I knew I was a part of it.
You came into my bedroom and you said, I’m going now, Mikey. Stay cool and don’t do drugs. And don’t worry about me, because I’ll see you in the morning. I promise I’ll be the sunshine on your face, and when the sun goes down I’ll be the moonshine on your skin.
I always loved your cheesy eloquence, even when it was sarcastic. You kept me waiting for morning like nothing else could.
I’m going now. Goodnight, never goodbye.
I waited for morning. The sun came up, but it wasn’t morning because you were supposed to be there in the morning, and your room was empty. The day passed, but morning did not come. And then the phone call came instead, and night came crashing down without any moonshine on my skin. There was no skin there at all.