Escapee

[carose59]

Escapee

It seems there must have been a point of intersection--
when I was thirteen,
longing, overflowing with lusts misunderstood
standing on a corner of Washington Street,
watching a wrecked VW collapse and die, replaced with 
    some other, some nondescript, some other-owned vehicle
and slide off into the sunset.

I could have climbed in too.  Disappeared into the sunset, away from 
   the misery to come, away from the illusions, delusions,
                      hallucinations and imaginary friends

could have gone with you to the beach.

You could have been real.

Instead of unblooming,
instead of disappearing,
I could have soared (with you)
ridden waves and trailed stars.
Gotten drunk on stolen wine and spread my legs,
become that other girl, the one in the shadow of my mirror.

I could have walked away from that scared-every-moment life,
thrown off my habit,
run away with you.


. . . no.

Someone would have protected me.


Could lying with you
in the backseat of some stranger's car
possibly have hurt me more 
than the coming days of abandonment and betrayal,
the nightly longing for razor blades and Heathcliff?

Surely you 
       would have been softer to me than
     the stone walls I cried against.

If you had seen me, what would you have seen?
My solemn, don't-touch, good-girl camouflage?
Would you have
      torn through me to find my tie-
                        dyed, flower-
                    powered, rainbow-eyed soul?

What would I have seen?
How far down would I have gone?
Or could all those generations of lofty 
                                      mountain
                                             tops
 in my blood 
have maybe kept us both aloft?