it was raining this morning
as I drove to work
in uncomfortable silence
with myself, and in
the strange in-between
of early morning,
the sides of all the roads
became one, and suddenly
I was driving down the street
where I once held hands with
someone on the gearshift
of their car—it became sunset
boulevard in the rain, it became
the street I crashed on,
my car giving its shrapnel
gifts to the asphalt,
such a small and awful sacrifice.
in another life, another story,
I sat next to you on a driveway,
you sprawled on your back
and I watched your rib cage moving.
another, you surprised my lips
with a kiss outside of your house.
you taught my mouth
the meaning of hello.
these are not the same stories,
but my mind makes casual inferences,
almost all of them wrong;
you stretch and dislocate yourself.
first your eyes a murky green,
now the softest brown.
tomorrow, another color,
tomorrow, another road,
another story—maybe this time
I will wake up drowning, maybe
I’ll resurface close to your new face,
try not to meet your new eyes.
the drive between the mountains
becomes another drive to work,
the man on the stereo still croons,
and he’s talking to me, he is.
you are many and none,
and I am so tired.
Kaytie Rose Thomas is a writer from Southern California who is currently studying in Scotland. When not writing, she can be found wearing more sweaters than could ever be necessary and crying about Haruki Murakami.