In this early April sun I feel blood warming to the surface. The glare of ice and white knits deep lines between my brows that I have never understood. The squinting doesn't help. Clenching never makes anything better. I don’t mind walking home. But in this too bright light I can’t relax. Each step threatens to take me on my ass again. These shoes shouldn’t come out till May, but I can’t seem to remember what April is like even though every year it’s break up all the way through, and there’s never an easy walk, never a step that doesn’t hesitate halfway into pressing down and maybe around into that dance of icy insecurity and arms akimbo. On the day I let the parking lot win I heard her call my name across ten cars or so and let my head jerk back too fast. The cardboard tray gave way and I felt the weight of one grande coconut latte, a tall mocha breve with whip, a twelve ounce Americano, and a tall black drip lead the way like a ballroom partner with one invisible hand behind my back and another pulling the tray. The latte went to one side and the drip the other, I tried to catch them both which wound my feet around in what could have been the set up for a fantastic pirouette had I been on a floating hardwood floor instead of the glaciery overflow of the parking rink.
Time slowed, space thickened, paper cups lifted to a hault—I saw them suspended against the white of the sun in the moment my head whipped back and my feet left the ground. Now that same mind screeching feeling when my feet missed the beat and hit the brakes instead of the gas or was it the gas instead of the breaks and tires left their tracks and twirl-whirl-spiral glided across lanes heaving hearts into helps and gasps— She’s calling my name— My head— whips back WHAM the wheel WHACK the ice CLENCH the wheel CRACK the shield CLENCH the teeth WHACK white WHAM back black tack tracks tread a rock a gravel a stone. The windshield. I saw her feet start running. Start running. And all I can do is melt with the gush of heat in my hair my cheek my gut.
The radio wasn’t coming in right. I was trying to get the news. It was a story of a woman trying to make ends meet in the recession. And I hate those stories. Where the interviewer keeps pushing and pushing the single mother into corners and tears of how she can’t keep the car and the rent and the food and how hard it is as if any of us don’t have a hard enough fucking time without having to hear ourselves crying on the radio about it. Like that is going to help? So they break with a song but it’s not even a song just a piece of a song some snappy riff or refrain just to give you a break from the trembling sobs of the woman but it’s not a break its digital numbers on a tiny screen and I can’t get them in I can’t get them away from them and break. Break. Break look break. No break. No gas. No foot—stop. I see her feet start running. wham. wheel. whack. ice. clench. wheel. crack. teeth. white. wham. clench. back. black. tack. tracks lead to a rock a gravel a stone. Bone. Wind. Shield.
She picked up the cups and I felt around for my phone for no reason other than it seemed like the best thing to find first.
I’m sorry I said.
Are you okay?
(I’mnotokay.) Yes, yes, how embarrassing. Wow.
Are you sure? You really went down fast?
Yeah, no, no, yeah, I’m fine.
The four coffees colored the ice around me, wet my pants. The coffees.
It’s the coffees.
I see that she said. And she tried to help me up.
I don’t know why I don’t wear sunglasses. Something about the weight. And the cold. The glasses part above my ears conducts the cold. And I get headaches. Migraines. The glare pierces right into my skull and I feel sick to my stomach. And the squinting. The squinting doesn't help. Clenching never makes anything better. I don’t mind walking home. But in this too bright light I can’t relax. I can’t seem to remember what April is like. Even though every year it’s break up all the way through.
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