We Are Gypsies
no one would riot for less.
I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream of a blood red sky and a warrior’s sad cry for fallen brothers. I looked at you sleeping next to me, dirty blonde hair splayed across the Mickey Mouse pillow case you’ve had since you were six. The clock next to me told me that it was early, too early to wake you. So I let you sleep, put on quiet music.
Before day’s light had broken through the blinds, all of our things were packed and in the car. When your eyes finally opened, the green irises took in the empty cupboards and my old jean jacket in an instant. You didn’t say a word as I came near you, just let me take off the too-big shirt you had slept in and dress you in the loose jeans and red shirt I had picked out of your suitcase.
This time you didn’t cry as you watched me strip the bed down to put the linens in one last box. You used what was left of my coffee for toothpaste and brushed your hair with your fingers. The wooden floor you had complained about suddenly didn’t feel so rough to your bare feet. “Where now?” you asked, voice tough to fight the liquid crystals forming behind your eyelids.
I didn’t answer. I never did. Just kicked your flip flops over toward you and taped the box shut. “Breakfast on the way. Make sure I didn’t leave anything.” The front door banged behind me when I went outside and I didn’t have to turn and look to know that you had flinched when it sounded out.
You had been crying when you came out fifteen minutes later and my second cigarette was about to join the first under my shoe. The tears were gone, but your cheeks were red. You walked straight into my chest, face turned to the side to hear my heart beating. It’s too fast, still trying to catch up with the meaning of the dream. “I’m a gypsy and your body is my home,” you whisper. But it’s for you and not for me.
There’s nothing on the radio as we take off down the highway. You have sunglasses on as we chase the sun down a warm July morning. We’re so close to the state line that it takes less than half an hour to leave Colorado behind. We find a truck stop diner in Utah and the lines of your body as still tight, but relaxing. You take a picture of me with the waitress.
I decide to take her to California. My beautiful blonde drug with the pretty smile deserve somewhere with sun and no desert. Watch her smile to match the sun’s rays when we sleep on the beach. With weather that pretty we won’t even need to find a house. I hold her tight by the driver’s side door, my lips in her hair and my fingers pressing into her back.
“Will you run away with me?” I ask her again.
And she sniffles as she brings her arms around my waist, holds me tight, anchoring my body to hers. She nods and presses her face into the curve of my arm. “We are gypsies,” she tells me. I wonder what she sees when she reads our fortunes. Are they tangled together down this dark road until the end of time or does she save us and lead us to a forest with hammocks in trees? Does she leave me behind?
She puts her sunglasses back on as we leave the diner and I keep driving west, trying to catch up with the warrior’s cry without leaving my gypsy behind.
Before day’s light had broken through the blinds, all of our things were packed and in the car. When your eyes finally opened, the green irises took in the empty cupboards and my old jean jacket in an instant. You didn’t say a word as I came near you, just let me take off the too-big shirt you had slept in and dress you in the loose jeans and red shirt I had picked out of your suitcase.
This time you didn’t cry as you watched me strip the bed down to put the linens in one last box. You used what was left of my coffee for toothpaste and brushed your hair with your fingers. The wooden floor you had complained about suddenly didn’t feel so rough to your bare feet. “Where now?” you asked, voice tough to fight the liquid crystals forming behind your eyelids.
I didn’t answer. I never did. Just kicked your flip flops over toward you and taped the box shut. “Breakfast on the way. Make sure I didn’t leave anything.” The front door banged behind me when I went outside and I didn’t have to turn and look to know that you had flinched when it sounded out.
You had been crying when you came out fifteen minutes later and my second cigarette was about to join the first under my shoe. The tears were gone, but your cheeks were red. You walked straight into my chest, face turned to the side to hear my heart beating. It’s too fast, still trying to catch up with the meaning of the dream. “I’m a gypsy and your body is my home,” you whisper. But it’s for you and not for me.
There’s nothing on the radio as we take off down the highway. You have sunglasses on as we chase the sun down a warm July morning. We’re so close to the state line that it takes less than half an hour to leave Colorado behind. We find a truck stop diner in Utah and the lines of your body as still tight, but relaxing. You take a picture of me with the waitress.
I decide to take her to California. My beautiful blonde drug with the pretty smile deserve somewhere with sun and no desert. Watch her smile to match the sun’s rays when we sleep on the beach. With weather that pretty we won’t even need to find a house. I hold her tight by the driver’s side door, my lips in her hair and my fingers pressing into her back.
“Will you run away with me?” I ask her again.
And she sniffles as she brings her arms around my waist, holds me tight, anchoring my body to hers. She nods and presses her face into the curve of my arm. “We are gypsies,” she tells me. I wonder what she sees when she reads our fortunes. Are they tangled together down this dark road until the end of time or does she save us and lead us to a forest with hammocks in trees? Does she leave me behind?
She puts her sunglasses back on as we leave the diner and I keep driving west, trying to catch up with the warrior’s cry without leaving my gypsy behind.