MDS

i arrived in a new town.

the cut quartz crystal on my dashboard

formed a rainbow in a perfect circle.

this must be the place

to turn on the camera

and start filming my memories.

i find myself as a switch. not one of those on your wall at home.

let’s pretend it’s the big one at the power plant

that turns on all the power in the city.

it looks like a mouse trap with a bright red handle.

you’d think it’d be hard to flip

like the weight of its use equaled the power of its

resistance. but it doesn’t.

and i don’t take much to go off.

i’m going to not think about seeing you

until you’re here. until you’re standing right behind the door.

then i’m going to start freaking out. i’m gonna realize that i

at the time it was a novelty. i thought a little bit about it while i collected beers and went to a friend’s cook out. i thought about it while i drove home that night blasting a sad song with a haunting guitar solo in my quiet neighborhood. i may have wrestled back and forth in bed for a little longer, but the thought and i eventually went to sleep.

this last week i have been studying for my exams. i felt odd, like someone had pressed a stamp long and hard into my skin and the mark was lingering. i attributed that feeling to me graduating and returning to the real world. except, one day while i was laying on the couch and reading my notes, i started to drift off to sleep. just then, as my eyelids were dangling and the muscles in my face relaxed, i caught this smell. this floral, laundry smell, but sweeter. it was perfume. oh my god i realized whose perfume it was. it was this girl with red hair who i hung out with briefly in high school at the end of my senior year. i remember her red hair, white skin, and royal blue hoodie. i remember the way she used to say my name like she had a piece of her cheek tucked behind her molars. i remember her smell in my car at night in spring time. she was younger and i was moving on and i was a little bit clueless. i used to trade cluelessness for distance and mystery. her smell makes me well up now.

last night i had these two dreams. they were exactly the same except there were two different girls filling the role of my love interest. in each one we were just walking and slowly flirting with each other and becoming comfortable and then falling in love. we walked down a road on a steep hill with nothing but trees and grass on either side as we eventually made our way to a town.