Tonight I feel like I can’t draw a full breath. Both my bedroom windows are open and I can smell the rain outside but I still can’t make my mouth turn up and I still can’t stop myself from twitching. I keep shifting in this big leather executive chair and I just can’t get comfortable.
I know what I need to do; I just can’t do it right now.
I need to pull my boots on, grab my purse and glasses, and just go for a 2am drive in the rain.
I won’t stop til I’m in the next state.
I’ve got to get out of here. At this point I don’t really care where I go; I’ve got a book full of motel coupons in my glovebox, or I could sleep in my back seat using my trenchcoat as a blanket.
I’ll sit in some seedy all-night diner, some local chain I’ve never heard of, someplace where nobody knows me. I’ll sit in my booth and smoke, and write, and look for all the world like some misplaced beatnik putting on a pose.
I’ll pick up girls at rest stops. I’ll buy drugstore condoms. I won’t give my name. I’ll be Annie, maybe, or Jen. I look like a Jen.
I’ll be sure to tip my waitress.
The room will smell strangely like a basement. The light above the bed will be burned out. We’ll need to switch on the lamp.
We’ll kiss with our clothes on. We’ll lie down face to face in bed. We’ll finger each other and still feel very much alone. I won’t know what color her eyes are but I’ll memorize the cracks in the wallpaper.
We’ll wear jeans.
I’m tired of jeans.
I’ll take off my jeans and put on a pair of trashy fishnets and ask her to do the same. I need something a little fabulous, a little bit of motel room glamour.
It’ll cheer me up to see her legs out of those common jeans. Smoothed out and netted. Tarted up and on display for me - for my tired eyes and greedy hands. I’ll kiss her feet.
We’ll give each other something strange.
I’ll come back with stale breath and hopefully no love bites and the phone number of some tired-but-cute young waitress. Entirely too young for me but with much more experience with women. They all have, these days.
She could always lie. I’d never know.
I’ll go back to my boyfriend and my family and my cats. Back to my friends and sitting around at 2am in diners I recognize, not smoking and not writing, just swapping innuendo and dirty jokes and copping feels under the table… no.
It’s not summer anymore.
Back to not leaving my keyboard for days. Back to steady and unchanging, back to predictable and working late, back to fall and all it means, rainy nights and no one home but me. Back to the strangeness of sleeping in my own bed. Back to not having to cross my fingers and hope she was clean.
I wonder if it’s raining in Pennsylvania.
I don’t know what the hell this is. It’s 2am, it’s raining, and my last three diner waitresses have been entirely too smart and leggy.