I forgot about the salty air and the heat coming off his skin.
Category: Old Days
A different me. No longer applicable.
No Tell Motel
You only felt pain radiating through your bones, your fingers tight on the steering wheel, your other hand pressing down against your thigh to calm the ache.
Seventeen
I remember the first time I left town after having a boyfriend. I don’t know if he was really a boyfriend because he still had a wife.
Property Of
I watched as he made one more basket, caught the ball and then went into his house through the side door. The sun had set and his lights were on. The windows over the kitchen sink cast two yellow rectangles onto his driveway. I could see his mom putting away dishes.
Drive
That night we fought about his wife. We were drunk. He had to buy the beers because I was only eighteen.
Kicking in Malibu
My skin is hot and bumpy, my hair hurts where it is attached to my scalp. There is a growing fire in my chest and I feel like it’s burning me from the inside out.
New Mexico, 35 degrees.
It’s nights like these that I can’t stop thinking about you and those deserted middle of the night Albuquerque roads. There was a dive bar where we drank Bohemia and tequila shots and played on a pool table with ripped felt. It was impossible to make a straight shot. It was freezing outside. I didn’t…
Anniversary.
Remember being seventeen in that coffee place across the street from the bookstore when he told you it couldn’t happen again, and you said if he changed his mind to let you know. How he went down on you in that cheap motel in Ensenada with your friend in the other bed and it felt…
Blackburn Daze.
Once I went home with this guy named Brian. He was a barback at Vertigo. Remember Vertigo? I don’t remember too much except that we had sex on a couch under a giant picture of the Nothing’s Shocking cover and he kept telling me to say “I’m coming I’m coming!” The picture was really big,…
Denny’s
It was too difficult and familiar tonight. I didn’t want to call you back but your message said you’d finished rehearsal and you were hungry and wanted to meet us. You joined our table, tried to join in our laughter. The lights are bright at Denny’s. It’s not junkie light. Not the kind of place…
SFV: Sanctuary
The valley’s not really magic. When I was a kid I thought it was, because when you drive north on the 405 there’s a moment when you come over the hill and you see the valley laid out beneath you. At night the lights on the buildings glitter red and white and yellow. Those San…
Las Vegas: Sanctuary
Las Vegas: I drove through the night to get here. I left LA at two in the morning which is the best time to leave for Vegas; the air is cooler through the passes and your car is less likely to overheat. I tried to time it so that I could watch the changing colors…
Allison McCabe 