Fever

buckled in on the car ride to healing

The last time I felt normal, I was taking my clothes off in the passenger seat of Eli’s car. It was summer. The Dallas heat existed in its primordial state, momentarily expiring only in our absence.

Since 21, the AC in his 2011 charger had been a whisper. We never seemed to mind until we did. I was biting the collar of my shirt as he drove with his knee, adjusting the volume of the radio with his dominant hand. I slipped my shirt over my head and padded off my chest. Then, his throat.

“This is awful.” He said.

And I remember the fabric of my jeans; I remember hot latex, a sunburn creeping across my nose. The water bottle Eli and I brought with us was already bending so slightly from the heat, melting into the shape of the water. There was no awfulness here. Just sun.

The weeks that lead up to this trip had felt like a heel in a bear trap. I hadn’t told Eli. I often didn’t. His perception of my pain felt more like a magnifying glass those days, scorching me like the sun through the windshield of his car. His appetite for blood, my blood, was palpable.

Here’s your torment. Here’s my shoulder,

rest a while.

let me eat the pain through your eyes.

All my life, I’ve felt just on the outskirts of humanity; latent to an alien stitched into a well-made human suit. Eli always found the seam, ran his finger along each groove, and pushed

until the skin split.

The weeks preceding this trip felt like the gush of my entrails exiting the suit. Lie after lie. Punishment for truth. Telling him during the drive was like confessing to God I bleed. I bled. And when he kissed my wounds, held up his hands

the trap was snapped closed. My foot safe.

“We won’t forget this.” I’d said, but really, I begged to say:

I feel like myself only through suffering. Loving you is the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever do.

Keep driving.