Young Writers Society

in our prologue, we pretended
that we didn’t know how this would end.

this is a drive, you say. this is where you take the map
behind the last gas station and come back without it,
ash on your fingers and a lie on your tongue.
this is where i trace constellation shapes on the windshield
because i’m hoping to get far enough away from other lights
to see the real ones. it’s pointless, though.
the sky is always blood red here, and there’s burning neon
off the side of the road, where no one should ever stop.

darling, you see that glowing sign?
yeah, it says vacancy. i slipped a matching one
through my ribcage because it feels so empty in there. do you like it?

(you didn’t ever take the invitation in
and make your way to my heart, though.)

i would set the scene better, but then i’d spoil the ending.
(here, the rivers are dried, the trees are husks of what they were.
you’d know too soon something goes down in flames.)

the car is rumbling, even though you said the engine was broken.
it would be the third heartbeat in this space,
but our hearts aren’t whole enough to add up to that much.
what about the radio, whispering static on every station?
it’s doing its best, but it’s only playing along to your heartbeat:
faint, out of rhythm, characterized by absence, and i wait
for us to fall through the cracks in the sound.
you’ll get your heart back someday, i’m sure. i just wish
you weren’t leaving the work of healing it to me.

i tell you my heart is a postcard to the grand canyon
and you don’t get the reference. it’s okay, you’ve never been there
and it’s hard to imagine a fracture that size if you haven’t seen one.

you roll down the window for imaginary smoke
and only let the dust in. it’s alright, my lungs will be fine;
they’ve already been breathing in all the silent ways you hurt me.

i count the skeletons in the landscape, because i'm still trying
at playing road trip games— one bone, two bones,
all ten of my fingers. are we becoming where we are?
the horizon won't move for us because you aren't either,
so i count the same ones over and over again— three, four,
my two dozen ribs. maybe i'm seeing my reflection in this window.
out there, i might be the fossilized howl of a buried coyote, or even
a fallen vulture in some ironic twist. in here, i am just
my frameworks, the scaffolding that the rest of me
is supposed to be built onto, but i am seeing it stripped hollow.
i count my skeletons in the landscape, because in the end,
this wasteland and i are both equally barren and inescapable—
it's just that one of us has never denied that she isn't.

i would save you. you know, in those old movies
there's always this pairing and their car and some dream
and a road that seems endless before the sudden stop.
in those tragedies, there's always those characters who fail
because all the choices they could make to avert their fate
are the ones that go against everything they are, and i am a savior.
i’m not reading into our recurring themes and motifs enough yet,
otherwise i’d realize what genre i’m in, but i would save you.
i, you tell me, would drag you down with me.

maybe we're just foil characters like that. there’s room for two of us in this car
and for interpretation of that. i couldn’t be a savior if i chose to leave.

~

but you're the one behind the wheel,
foot just kissing the gas pedal, albatross-heavy,
thinking about the way the sun is supposed to fall

and the wind from the southwest
is blowing in stronger now—

so really

what's keeping this car on the cliff?

i am not towering. i am far too brittle for that,
too ready to crack my sandstone layers. you told me
that there would be treasure in those fractures
and that i should keep splintering, but i was never a geode.
i wonder if you wanted to see how the broken look suits me, or if
i needed a little carving and sculpting before i was suitable for you,
but i’ve missed being bold on horizons after this breaking
when all i ever wanted was to hold the sky—
sorry to all those after you that i’ll cover in rocky dust.

i trusted you enough to think that you’d pick me as your world
and lift me up high above your shoulders, but i should’ve known
you wouldn’t have the strength to keep from letting go.

this is the side of the wave i kept you from seeing, you know. it’s about time
you tasted the sting of salt lakes i tried to dam up, felt the crash of water
that has not forgotten that it used to be ice. you aren’t ready
for any tide, not since you saw the dark side of the moon
and thought it was too meteor-struck to do any damage,
just like you thought of me. i have not forgotten who i used to be,
except i have, because i’ve been living in drought too long. i could

when i say we are flammable, i don't just mean
how we light matches like birthday candles and wait
for them to burn our fingertips. i mean the way
i use the ashes to scrawl cries for help on the red earth
and you trace writings i will never get to read. i mean
that there are gasoline spills on the scorched road reflecting
shades of crimson i've only seen here. i mean your smoky laugh
and how it's polluting this eternal sunset when i'm just trying
to save every ember of us that i can. i mean there's a wildfire
lying in wait in this car and i'm still deciding what side i'm on.

when i say we are flammable, i'm giving you a warning,
but these firestorms happen every summer in these lands. if we're lucky,
that light in your eyes will go out this winter.

in the badlands, it is always sunset.

the gravel crunches under tires when we pull over to the side of the road and wait for our promised stars. we don’t know whether that’s a full moon or a tired sun we’re seeing, but we watch it through the dust rising through the air even though the wind is dead, too tired to even blow around tumbleweeds. every hour, the sky is a little redder, and you have a new reason for why we’re still here, but i think the truth is that we’re captive. i don’t know whether it’s you or the landscape that’s keeping us here, but this wasteland knows how to set a trap. let me share a little: the shadows from the mesas extend a little further, swallowing you whole, and suddenly you’re seeing a photographic timelapse of the valley becoming a sundial, even though you’ve never seen the sun finish its fall here. you’re seeing your life flash before your eyes and you’re waiting for the crash, a fancy new car in flames, but that hasn’t happened yet. you watch it. you’re realizing your life needs a touch of the cinematic. the badlands promise you that and their stars. you set the car to parked.

but you’re good at the trapping, too. it’s the cold fingers around a wrist like metal handcuffs, a constant hand on the car keys. i won’t call you a prison, but it’s like you want me to be shackled to you, with how you’ve placed us alone in the middle of nowhere. my mother said that a relationship is like a road trip; enjoy the ride— at the end of the day, if you don't like who you're with, get out of the car, but there’s no hitchhiking out of here. i could give you the benefit of the doubt, decide the doors are locked because you want us to stay safe from those reddened shadows out there and not because you don’t want me to slip off and become one of them. i think i will, just because i’ve never been the one to cut a story short. if you are a cage, at least you are a cage of gentle hands resting on a steering wheel, and the badlands do not cradle their visitors, even insincerely.

in the badlands, it is always sunset. if only i could watch it with some wind in my hair.

sunlight drips through a cracked car window,
spills over your arm and flows along your veins
until it pools by our feet, rising up around us.
it’s a sticky sweet smell, like light pollution as gasoline
or that cloying prismatic poison you gave me
that i loved to choke on, but even more as a way
to invent and perform more creative ways to drown.
the car is bright with the rainbow that tastes of gold
as you roll the windows up, and i scream for rain.