“American Spirits” by Audrey Gaines
Your tongue is in my mouth and I’m thinking way too hard about it. I shouldn’t be, I know. I should be overjoyed, elated; that buzzing in my skin should’ve continued from your car into your house but now your tongue is in my mouth and it’s just sitting there. Like a lump.
We’re in your bedroom, on your bed with uncovered pillows and loose phone chargers. You haven’t changed much in the months you’ve ignored me, completely stagnant since the last time you remembered that I existed. The shitty speaker you’re playing music from is way too loud. I worry your brother will hear and get mad like last time. You taste like Dr. Pepper. This song comes on, a song I used to play whenever I wanted to pretend about you. A song I’d play at night when I’d pray your name as if you could hear it, hoping the whisper would manifest as your number on my phone screen.
But now it’s playing in your room, from your speaker as your tongue is in my mouth and I want to go home.
I am terribly focused on the fact that your hands are not touching me. Your lack of participation makes me realize several things in a single moment and before the first chorus ends I pull back. You look confused for some reason and you’re still beautiful but I no longer ache when I’m up so close.
It’s partly my fault. I built you into a man you aren’t, I molded you in my mind through shallow conversations and projections of similarities. That man would touch me when I kiss him, that man would make his bed when I come over, that man wouldn’t see me as something to fill the time. There are real men in my life who don’t see me that way.
The music plays and I realize you’re not divine. I smile and ask you to take me home. I don’t have to wait on you anymore.
I’m given a cigarette at a party. It’s delicious; a blue American Spirit. And for the first time I think of the song and not you.
Audrey Gaines is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts that hopes to finally start writing again.
