The Last Harangue of a Sycophant

Sometimes I keep my foot on the accelerator just to see how much you fucked me up. You never disappoint. I wait till it's almost too cold outside to do anything but get back inside--somewhere--and more often than not, in that big red car.

Despite the broken heater, I continue to turn the dial each and every time I get in--thinking somehow, this time it would work. It reminded me of the false positives we used to share with each other. Those were good times. Except when they weren't.

I only liked to drive at night because that was when no one could see me crying. The thing about crying is this. They always think it's some version of wearing your heart on your sleeve or showing too much emotion, but really it's the beginning of a hardening artery. That first tear is almost never the opening of the flood gates, but rather the first of many moments of exhaustion. That's what crying is--a string of moments of fatigue that finally end in you just not wanting to do it anymore. And I liked to cry in the car where no one could see it because in there, I felt a little more alone, a little more stoic, a little more humane.

We were a miscarriage, you and me. I only wanted to drive way out past any semblance of an existence that I recognized. Then I felt a little better about the damage we did to one another. I'm not entirely sure why but I think it had something to do with the mountains and the unfamiliar scenery. No one could get me there. More importantly, nothing could get me. It was somewhere with no memory of us and therefore was not a reminder of the gruesome demolition of everything we once were.

And one night, just like this, with the stars reigning over all of us, the people who couldn't distinguish between them and their moving impersonators, I would drive and drive to that precipice. And I would go right off.

The way you never let me.