We eat up road in leaps between nowhere towns,

counting the miles between us and anywhere,

always too many and never enough

fleeting kisses on stretches of narrow and straight

somewhere horizons in every direction

just drive

we think too much as it is

just drive.

West, you say. West until there’s no more north.

But I can count the distance between us and the sun

and we can make it, I swear.

In the roadside motels we haven’t grown into;

clean, highly rated with breakfast at an additional charge.

We make believe at rent payers and money makers,

and wonder at the people who fucked

and the people who died

and the people who bled

and the people who cried

in the pre-loved beds we’re calling refuge.

Your skin is electric,

and we’re just a statistic, I guess.

Lemmings.

We die a hundred deaths in sheets

we wouldn’t have to wash

and tear gashes into one another’s sides

to let in the sun, you see,

to feel more than yesterday, you see.

I remember your hands on my neck

and all the scars we left each other

to be kissed away in the morning

and ripripripped open later that day

I hurt. Do you?

Stay.

Two beggars in bed, begging for more

than we deserve or the other can give.

Stay – but where is my dignity?

Where, my self-respect?

Shake the magic eight ball again and plead:

Who am I even?

How dare you break my faith?

Stay. I beg.

I’m too tired to drive right now, but the horizon looms behind us; slowly catching up.

Drive; in any direction I don’t care

drive and touch my thigh sometimes

so I don’t forget that you are there

and your shadow falls softly against me

and I need the flood.

Heavyheavyheavyheavy.

Touch me.

The middle of nowhere isn’t far enough

you pressed against me isn’t near enough

and the distance to the sun is more than

anyone could have anticipated

and there’s a highway leading back

and were we even anywhere, anyway?

But we are all so far away.