Under Mountains and Oceans
a/b life
“i’m trying to remember what it felt like when you kissed me last. i know i was the one who kissed you last, so i feel silly saying it, but i’m trying to remember the last time you kissed me and i can’t, you always just kissed back.”
you look up at me. you were disinterested in me but you’d politely asked what i was thinking about but now you’ve given in, you’re engaged; i realize with a startling shiver that this is all we are. our happiness is the moments trapped, pinned, between two cars carrying, respectively: our breakup — our relationship. there is no room for friendship, there is only the image of our brief bliss spitting blood on the curb, alive only until we each back out, exchange insurance information, and leave it to die.
when you got in the car i knew you were showering at a girl’s house because your hair, wet from rain, smelled like peaches or green tea or some other shitty fruit scent from a supermarket that men don’t bother with. your upper lip was shaved, as was your lower neck, because i’m sure whoever you were kissing had complained. you filled the cab with the overwhelming aura of i have a sex life and i listen to different music now and someone else reminds me when to get a haircut not you and my small body had flicked on cruise control and pulled one knee under my chin, folded in on itself, rolled down the window and started talking about feelings. i felt the revulsion off you in waves.
but now you’d been piqued, you were curious and mandatorily sad, a caricature of post-college musician: all limbs and purple rings around your eyes. i flick my eyes off the road long enough to see you settling in with the intimacy of a lover, going through my tapes and putting your feet up. you had put a handrolled cigarette in your mouth and were about to light it when you catch my eye and pull it out, saying, “oh, i’m sorry, i should’ve asked. i forget..”
“nah, it’s alright,” i say, brushing you off. you smile. i look back at the long flat expanse and you speak again.
“i just— i know you don’t mind. we used to drive and smoke. do you still do that?”
you know i don’t and i don’t know why you’re asking, so i don’t answer. i pick up the tape you’d been looking at and put it in. it’s a fleetwood mac one and it’s halfway into a song, but i don’t bother rewinding. you’re talking again.
“can we just go back to your place? my car is only a few blocks away. i just, i would feel really dumb, renting a motel the first night i’m here just because my parents are asleep.” i hear the apologetic break in your tone. “they go to sleep earlier every year.”
i nod and turn down stevie nicks and look back over at you. “yeah, that’s fine. just take your shoes off when you come in. we’re almost there.”
we drive for another twenty minutes until the road widens from two lanes to four and we’re in a town and within moments we’re in a city, it’s opened up, the trees are gone as are the stars but it’s half past three and it seems like everyone is asleep, regardless. we eventually make it to my driveway and i park and we pull your things out. i have to remind you to take your shoes off because it’s a rental and i don’t want to trek things in, but i don’t mind too much because you never did when you lived here anyway, and you follow near and i know you have a girlfriend but when you ask me for a glass of water and stand so close behind me i bend over the sink in such a way that my hip grazes your thigh and draw the smallest sigh from you like blood with the same satisfaction.
you have a girlfriend but you don’t talk about her and we fumble in the semi-darkness of my small living room, talking about what we used to do sans the intimacy and you’ve gone into the kitchen and come back with a bottle of jack from the freezer that you left when you moved out and i can tell you want to make a joke about how i didn’t touch it but you don’t. we drink half of it and you sit beside me smelling like a girlfriend and touch the same thigh that touched you, like it’s free game now, and you suddenly jump up and ask if i still have your records.
“yeah, i do, i’m sorry, i never sent them, i just— they’re expensive, and—”
“oh, i don’t mind. i just wanted to listen to. ah. yes. here.”
you’ve pulled out a mewithoutyou record and you’re putting it on and the small still-sober part of me raises an eyebrow i plucked just for you but the large not-sober part of me climbs over my coffee table and corners you against the turntable and presses your lips so hard against mine i wonder what i am trying to do: it feels like i am trying to pull out memories or affection or your soul, pull them into me so i can feel what i felt when we were together because i am so sick of feeling what i’ve felt since you left, and you wrap your arms around my waist and take me to the bedroom you spent 300 nights in, give or take the days you took near the end to ruin whatever trust had stuck it out that far.
we fuck clumsily and go to sleep and the next morning i make us pancakes and i can tell you’re endeared and annoyed and you’re on your phone looking at the headlines while we eat and i tell you, Can’t you just be present and hang out with me? and you say, This is important, North Korea is doing something important and i snap They’ll still be doing them after we’re done, then and you slap your palm on table and it knocks the syrup bottle over and you say coldly I remember why I fucking left and then you’re standing and i realize i am crying, but silently, so silently you might not notice, but you have and you set the bottle back up and apologize and sit down to say I should go, I have somewhere to be and stand back up and i smile and you leave and i realize i still can’t remember the last time you kissed me.
you look up at me. you were disinterested in me but you’d politely asked what i was thinking about but now you’ve given in, you’re engaged; i realize with a startling shiver that this is all we are. our happiness is the moments trapped, pinned, between two cars carrying, respectively: our breakup — our relationship. there is no room for friendship, there is only the image of our brief bliss spitting blood on the curb, alive only until we each back out, exchange insurance information, and leave it to die.
when you got in the car i knew you were showering at a girl’s house because your hair, wet from rain, smelled like peaches or green tea or some other shitty fruit scent from a supermarket that men don’t bother with. your upper lip was shaved, as was your lower neck, because i’m sure whoever you were kissing had complained. you filled the cab with the overwhelming aura of i have a sex life and i listen to different music now and someone else reminds me when to get a haircut not you and my small body had flicked on cruise control and pulled one knee under my chin, folded in on itself, rolled down the window and started talking about feelings. i felt the revulsion off you in waves.
but now you’d been piqued, you were curious and mandatorily sad, a caricature of post-college musician: all limbs and purple rings around your eyes. i flick my eyes off the road long enough to see you settling in with the intimacy of a lover, going through my tapes and putting your feet up. you had put a handrolled cigarette in your mouth and were about to light it when you catch my eye and pull it out, saying, “oh, i’m sorry, i should’ve asked. i forget..”
“nah, it’s alright,” i say, brushing you off. you smile. i look back at the long flat expanse and you speak again.
“i just— i know you don’t mind. we used to drive and smoke. do you still do that?”
you know i don’t and i don’t know why you’re asking, so i don’t answer. i pick up the tape you’d been looking at and put it in. it’s a fleetwood mac one and it’s halfway into a song, but i don’t bother rewinding. you’re talking again.
“can we just go back to your place? my car is only a few blocks away. i just, i would feel really dumb, renting a motel the first night i’m here just because my parents are asleep.” i hear the apologetic break in your tone. “they go to sleep earlier every year.”
i nod and turn down stevie nicks and look back over at you. “yeah, that’s fine. just take your shoes off when you come in. we’re almost there.”
we drive for another twenty minutes until the road widens from two lanes to four and we’re in a town and within moments we’re in a city, it’s opened up, the trees are gone as are the stars but it’s half past three and it seems like everyone is asleep, regardless. we eventually make it to my driveway and i park and we pull your things out. i have to remind you to take your shoes off because it’s a rental and i don’t want to trek things in, but i don’t mind too much because you never did when you lived here anyway, and you follow near and i know you have a girlfriend but when you ask me for a glass of water and stand so close behind me i bend over the sink in such a way that my hip grazes your thigh and draw the smallest sigh from you like blood with the same satisfaction.
you have a girlfriend but you don’t talk about her and we fumble in the semi-darkness of my small living room, talking about what we used to do sans the intimacy and you’ve gone into the kitchen and come back with a bottle of jack from the freezer that you left when you moved out and i can tell you want to make a joke about how i didn’t touch it but you don’t. we drink half of it and you sit beside me smelling like a girlfriend and touch the same thigh that touched you, like it’s free game now, and you suddenly jump up and ask if i still have your records.
“yeah, i do, i’m sorry, i never sent them, i just— they’re expensive, and—”
“oh, i don’t mind. i just wanted to listen to. ah. yes. here.”
you’ve pulled out a mewithoutyou record and you’re putting it on and the small still-sober part of me raises an eyebrow i plucked just for you but the large not-sober part of me climbs over my coffee table and corners you against the turntable and presses your lips so hard against mine i wonder what i am trying to do: it feels like i am trying to pull out memories or affection or your soul, pull them into me so i can feel what i felt when we were together because i am so sick of feeling what i’ve felt since you left, and you wrap your arms around my waist and take me to the bedroom you spent 300 nights in, give or take the days you took near the end to ruin whatever trust had stuck it out that far.
we fuck clumsily and go to sleep and the next morning i make us pancakes and i can tell you’re endeared and annoyed and you’re on your phone looking at the headlines while we eat and i tell you, Can’t you just be present and hang out with me? and you say, This is important, North Korea is doing something important and i snap They’ll still be doing them after we’re done, then and you slap your palm on table and it knocks the syrup bottle over and you say coldly I remember why I fucking left and then you’re standing and i realize i am crying, but silently, so silently you might not notice, but you have and you set the bottle back up and apologize and sit down to say I should go, I have somewhere to be and stand back up and i smile and you leave and i realize i still can’t remember the last time you kissed me.