Ode to the Drives of 1999-2001

Dearest You,

I just finished listening to "Swan Dive" by Ani DiFranco. Its a cool breezy Monday night turning Tuesday morning and my mind turns to the icy Eucalyptus scented wind rushing through my hair at 80 miles an hour.

I was always watching your face as you stared at the road ahead, switching songs on the CD's like a madman with no purpose. Sometimes a song would come on that would make you wince, but you would listen to it and sing the pain out of it. Sometimes you would sing Smashing Pumpkins songs to me, and one night even a bad Creed song. Of course only you could make a Creed song mean something to me.

Do you remember the night you swept me away to Hollywood at 100 mph?

We walked around that campus and you told me on the roof of that beautiful building that you could see yourself marrying me.

Remember I was all dressed up and we drove Mulholland Drive? When we got out of the car, the sounds of the crickets was deafening. There was a bulldozer on the side of the road amidst the piles of dirt. I remember thinking it would be cute and quirky of me if i climbed into the scoop part of the monstrous earth mover. It was, and we kissed there, kisses like rain so sweet on a hot summer night. I swear that night I could not believe my luck, you were so focused on me, your eyes my own personal starlight. I was so happy.

We drove home so fast, we stayed up all night, indulging in the spoils of my bottomless prescriptions.

You were always driving. No one could ever get ahold of you. When you did use a cell phone to call, you always lied about how close you were. Sometimes you took hours and never explained why. We all had a joke that you had your own time zone. Those missing hours always hurt and confused me.

I waited up for you one night and you never showed. Early the next morning i heard a scratch at my window and found you on the ground in my backyard covered in mud and sand that i could not identify. You had no idea where you had been, but when we pieced together where you had been, it still did not make any sense. Sometimes i wonder if you were ever lost that night and not just playing some game.

I found your mystery a conquest. I adored our delusions. We were great at pretending to be things we were not. When the fantasy was killed, we ended.

Sometimes you would just drive without telling me where we were going. You would crank up "Malibu" by Hole and tear ass up the coast for no reason. To this day when I hear that song it knocks the breath out of me as does "Stand Inside Your Love" by Smashing Pumpkins.

You were my own private beautiful disaster. Our life was dangerous and exciting and only we understood it. Then one day you decided on the ultimate way to cut the umbilical cord from your parents and you signed on the dotted line. You went away and changed a little bit. Then they sent you away and you changed completely. You laughed at my magick and scoffed at my style.

The end is not what this is about. All of this is now just a fond lost memory that one day may appear in my writing as fiction.

I miss riding in cars with your ghost.