the last great drive or barrel of monkeys
The drive from San Diego to Topanga Canyon is almost three hours long, all along the Pacific Coastal Highway. Grab a friend, the Beatles catalogue (which is longer than three hours, but when you pick and choose songs, it goes pretty fast) and a sketch book or journal, and figure it out. You won't have to switch drivers, and it should probably be someone you'd like to get to know better but can actually stand being with for more than an hour. You have to have a convertible, and you have to pretend you're filming a movie (or bring a camera and film a movie, your choice). I don't make the rules; I just play by them.
I try writing poetry about your thin fingers or how you grip the steering wheel at the bottom, or how you know every song but can't hit every note. We talk about friends we miss or what we should have done "that one time in Singapore/Tokyo/Sydney" and then we fall silent just to listen to the music. Three hours seem like a lifetime when all there is to do is watch the road and re-live the past four (four!) years of our lives. We smoke sort of lazily, but they're cloves so we have a right to be lazy. I love you driving my car; you have one elbow propped on the door, eyes behind barely-tinted sunglasses. You're tired, but smiling. I touch my mouth to make sure I'm smiling too.
We have a discussion about under-rated Beatles albums; I say Rubber Soul and you say, "That's just a sound bite answer, everyone says that." So what did you pick? "Revolver."
And it's easy to talk about music with you because sometimes we catch the wavelength of long nights. We slide into the Canyon and you look at me for a long moment as we sit in your driveway, car off. The silence crashes around us, and if I listen closely, I can hear the ocean.
It's only the fourth/fifth/sixth time you've kissed me but all I can think is how soft your hair is under my fingers and how your lips feel pressed against mine. The questions spill forth like a hundred monkeys on a thousand typewriters, but your kiss chases them away, at least for the moment. It's terrifying to say it, but iloveyou seems harmless when whispered to the California wind.
I try writing poetry about your thin fingers or how you grip the steering wheel at the bottom, or how you know every song but can't hit every note. We talk about friends we miss or what we should have done "that one time in Singapore/Tokyo/Sydney" and then we fall silent just to listen to the music. Three hours seem like a lifetime when all there is to do is watch the road and re-live the past four (four!) years of our lives. We smoke sort of lazily, but they're cloves so we have a right to be lazy. I love you driving my car; you have one elbow propped on the door, eyes behind barely-tinted sunglasses. You're tired, but smiling. I touch my mouth to make sure I'm smiling too.
We have a discussion about under-rated Beatles albums; I say Rubber Soul and you say, "That's just a sound bite answer, everyone says that." So what did you pick? "Revolver."
And it's easy to talk about music with you because sometimes we catch the wavelength of long nights. We slide into the Canyon and you look at me for a long moment as we sit in your driveway, car off. The silence crashes around us, and if I listen closely, I can hear the ocean.
It's only the fourth/fifth/sixth time you've kissed me but all I can think is how soft your hair is under my fingers and how your lips feel pressed against mine. The questions spill forth like a hundred monkeys on a thousand typewriters, but your kiss chases them away, at least for the moment. It's terrifying to say it, but iloveyou seems harmless when whispered to the California wind.