hot and cold ghosts

all of the things i’ve got aren’t quite what they once were. have you ever swam in the mississippi before? have you ever bought strawberry preserves from a great white porch off the side of the road? have you ever counted the stars that make up the little dipper on the shore of the gulf of mexico? have you ever stolen walnuts from your neighbors tree in november when the leaves are warm and gold? sometimes i opened my eyes to yours being full of smoke, to fevers and rivers and secrets i’ve never told. i used to know a boy that called me darlin. we ate sweet potato fries in the back of your pick-up with all of the dreamy static stuck between us and a cigarette pressed against your lips when you told me “c’mere baby.” and i kept thinking “bury me here in your backseat, bury me here in the sweet tasting autumn heat, bury me in the backyard underneath the leaves and let the stars build a grave out of me, bury me in a place where it’s safe to stay for a little while longer and no one will ever have to know” i forget most of it now. i forget a lot of things. but sometimes i can still hear your always slightly out of tune guitar strings. the way your wild blue eyes cut everything they saw into quarters. i figured one day i’d be replaced by a pack of cigarettes, a fifth of vodka, another girl in your passenger seat, and those nights that’ll keep secrets better than any of your friends. but you caught me sunstruck and right where you wanted me. you caught me watching from the cracks of your broken windows, you caught me hiding where i was smiling into your sheets when you told me stories about achilles regretting everything and how you used to think that the red spots you saw when you closed your eyes were souls trapped between this life and whatever was waiting for us on the other side. remember that tuesday in summer when a boy died driving home one night? i was quiet for days. i kept wondering what he saw right before he passed. i always think about those kind of things. about how maybe the end is just across the bed spread. i forget what day it was or what shirt you were wearing or what i had said. but i remember it was four in the afternoon and i loved you. that’s when you asked me if i was ready to leave and never look back. “alls you gotta do is get in the truck, darlin.”

--Ashli Wood