literature

When I Wake

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Literature Text

When we drive, it's only to feel the chilly wind on our scars. The blood dry under our noses. The sting of curling my fingers around the steering wheel. The smoke blowing out the window, in my eyes. All I can taste blood and tobacco in my mouth. Where the gums are separating from the teeth. The person next to me, he and I are bound by the bruises. The one-two punch in basements and bars. In his backyard.


"Where are we going?" My hand wrapped from a fight. Tyler's kiss still visible. The burn still alive and well on the back of my hand. I glance at it. I glance at it all the time.


Tyler says, "Just keep driving." He blows smoke out the window. In his eyes. He licks his lips and looks at my hand. He looks at it all the time. "I'll tell you when to stop. When we stop, we stop," Tyler tells me. For now, I listen to Tyler. For now, he's not helping or hurting the non-sleep. His feet curl under him in the passenger seat.


We haven't stopped yet. My head throbs dull, low around my neck from a fight last night. I can't remember if it was with Tyler or if it was somebody else. Every fight feels like going in for surgery. You're always ready for it going in. When you come out, you look like a completely different person. The expression I ordered is never one I get. Never one I go in expecting.


Am I sleeping?
Just keep driving.
We'll stop when we stop. When Tyler says stop.


There aren't any stars in the sky, which makes me believe that it isn't really night. Tyler says, "Full moon," and howls out the window at the sky. A horn blares behind us. Tyler says, Shove it up your ass. And I laugh.


I feel like I'm in middle school again. Like my mother is forcing me to sit quietly, while we drive to Grandma's. Without the radio. Without a sound. Like we're listening to nature take place around us. We might be listening for the cops. Tyler doesn't say. I feel like I'm in middle school again. Doing what I'm told. Obeying the rules, even though Tyler says that they aren't really rules. "You answer to nobody. And you'll never die. Self-destruction is the key to self-loving. Living."


I shake my head, "No. Tyler, that doesn't even make sense." Tyler leans over in his seat, stale, hot breath on my ear, and he says, It makes perfect sense. Keep. Driving. When we stop, we stop. When Tyler says stop. The road seems to never turn or wind. It goes on forever in a straight line. The headlights can't reach forever.


Tyler's kiss glistens in the moonlight. We finally stopped, but the road keeps going. Gravel and asphalt, way ahead of us. We have to keep going, but we're almost there. We don't stop until the road does. "We'll know that we're there, then," Tyler says, stretching out in the backseat. All the windows are closed. It's cold, and it wasn't earlier. "Fuck, where are the blankets?" I shake my head. I didn't know I was supposed to have them. I don't usually drive and drive and drive until I'm freezing and lost and tired.


I stay in the front seat, feet stuck between the gas and the brake. My head aching. Hand stinging. Ribs sore when my lungs contract. Tyler can't get comfortable in the back. The stars are still missing. I feel like I'm in high school. And I don't know why.


I feel Tyler's hands grip the sides of the headrest and he shakes it until I sit up. "What?"


Am I sleeping?
Have I slept?
Tyler says, Stop.


He climbs in the front seat, props his feet on the dashboard and we don't talk. We don't talk about Fight Club and we don't talk about anything else. How he spit in chowder. How I pissed in soup. We pretend like we're not sitting with each other in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Tyler won't let me turn the car back on. Is he sleeping? Tyler says, "I'm not sleeping."


"I didn't ask."


Tyler's head, all blue on one side, rolls on his own headrest, and tells me, "You didn't have to." And that leaves me tingling, alone to swallow the blood and tobacco flavor off my tongue. "When you live within a person," Tyler says, as he lights another cigarette, "Nothing needs to be asked. To be said. To be told. You don't ask, say, or tell me anything." Tyler blows smoke, hard in my face. It's all I can taste and see and breathe.


Am I sleeping?


Tyler moves through the smoke, and for a second, I think he head butts me, until he keeps my head close to his, our nose broken and touching. Water starts to collect in my eyes. The smoke from his cigarette burns all the way through my eyelids. He's made my headache worse. His fingers clutch the side of my head. Dried blood flaking away with his grip.


"When you ask, say, or tell me something, it only comes back," Tyler bites. And I don't understand. "In a fight, and you know it." And I don't.


Tyler kisses me. With a split lip, and lungs full of smoke, it hurts, and I can feel his teeth. Biting bone, all blood and spit. And then he pushes me away. His cigarette burns the side of my neck, and then my head cracks the window.


"Keep driving," Tyler tells me. "You'll understand tomorrow. Even if you don't."


Am I sleeping?
Have I slept?


We keep driving, and it's only to feel the scars in the freezing wind. The blood dry in the back of my head. Tyler says, "You'll wake up."
Word Count: 983
narrator/tyler (fight club)

a drabble; because i can't fucking function right now.
© 2008 - 2024 missxscissorhands
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teenagejesus's avatar
this was creepy good. i literaly got chills.

-jeez