Something I Loved but Hate Now

You made me hate parking lots.

I used to love the smell of hot gravel beneath my bare feet.

Barely burned

pink skin on my soles to remind me of you 

hours after we left.

More, I loved you

and me. On top of that hill and the world.

Summers, at Snail Lake Park.

Once, when you went to the Porta-Potty, 

I whispered Kenna a voicemail.

I wanted to preserve that feeling in a glass case,

when I didn't know immortal infatuation would be a curse.

“I know I sound crazy, but he’s the one.

Years from now, remind me that I said this.” 

And you were.

On bad days, I rewind my cranium cassette to the nights

we went there to be alone.

It was better than sneaking around my parents’ house,

even with the seat belt buckle jabbing into my back.

The two throbbing cell towers in the distance.

Beating like our hearts, you said.

Arctic Monkeys blaring, a ritual,

our holy covenant,

a piece of me you devoured.

You made me hate parking lots

when you told me the truth:

“800 miles away is too many.”

I told you saying this meant you couldn’t 

take it back.

I lied.

Of course, eventually that was true.

Years later, I’m in Dallas.

I have a California Dream,

and I think maybe he’s the one too.

So tell me, 

why’d you call me that night in October?

Drunk on your parents’ divorce,

change, and probably some other girl.

You postured the perfect apology

until, 

“I didn’t know who else to call.”

I thought back to that scene in Say Anything 

when Lloyd says, 

“Do you need somebody, or do you need me?”

​

I wanted to tell you

he doesn’t blame me when it rains outside.

Instead, I told you how my middle name is Grace, 

but that I couldn’t save you from growing up.

Instead, I told you about California summers.

“Fuck you, Gillian.”

And the line went dead.

I still have the voicemail 

you left me

when we were sixteen,

at the solstice of our orbit.

You apologize for something I no longer remember.

Then,

“I love you.”

And the line goes dead.

That feeling, preserved in its glass case, 

so I can remember

what it was like to love parking lots.