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The cicadas are loud this time of night.

You’re in the back of my pickup somewhere along the Mississippi.

My legs dangling off the front of the hood, I’ve stared at the moonlight’s reflection on the water long enough that my brain has started trying to decipher what it’s telling me.

My nose still hasn’t adjusted to the rotting catfish washed up along the bank. There’s got to be dozens of ‘em.

Every now and again I take deep breaths as some sort of punishment. The putrid smell in my chest complements the feeling next to it.

I didn’t mean to kill you. I mean, I don’t think I did.

I drop to my feet, the ground feels unstable. My head feels full, like it might explode with every heartbeat. I can’t even bring myself to look at my feet as I walk to the tailgate.

For the first time in my life, the terrifying vastness of the stars feels more comfortable to look into.

I had a reoccurring dream as a child where I was floating in space, everything was quiet, all my senses were muted. I would panic and it’d always take way too long to wake up.

I wish I was floating right now.

The valves of my heart feel itchy. My legs have gone numb. The tailgate feels much heavier this time around.

When I tossed you in I wasn’t thinking about how undignified you’d look facedown in stagnant water and wet leaves from last night’s storm.

For such a small human it’s surprisingly difficult to turn you over, but I couldn’t bear the idea of dragging your face across the gritty, black truck bed. I wouldn’t do that to you.

Alright. I’ve done this to a hundred deer.

I’ll set the old dried out tarp under the tree, toss the rope over the strongest looking branch, tie one end to the hitch and the other to your- I need your clothes off.

The moonlight is pooling in your collarbones. You look bioluminescent. You’re the brightest thing out here.

I feel like I’m in space again, or thousands of feet underwater.

I said that if God came down and told me I had to live a thousand lives, I’d ask Him if you could be in all of them, any way will do.

You looked at me as if I asked you to carry something impossibly heavy.

I said, no, you don’t understand, I love you.

I love that you exist, I love that God, in His incomprehensible vastness, made you.

You said I’m being romantic.

I said, no, you don’t understand, I’m deeply grateful that you’re happening, that you move through this existence with a voice and agency, that I got to experience you.

You asked me what I meant.

I want her hands to be small, but confident. I want her to be stubborn, sharp tongued when she needs to be, soft spoken when she wants to be, but never powerless.

I want the way I look at you to be enough proof for her to believe in love. I want the way I look at her to be enough proof that she deserves it too.

I want your contradictions, your doubts.

I want to attend to the parts of you that flinch when you’re praised.

I want to be the one who understands all the things you swore to take to the grave. The time you touched yourself thinking about someone you hate. The time it felt hard to care when someone close to you died. The thought you had that one time.

You know the one.