More than the Banana Car

Our grimy, “antique” lemon yellow car never reaches sixty. We travel on back roads, side roads, losing ourselves in the journey and loving every moment. A cracked window, loosely hanging door, and ripped leather seats bound by duct tape epitomize our thrifty teenage years. Fuzzy black dice and Mardi gras necklaces hang from a mirror permanently smudged by make-up application. The radio can be a faint murmur, white noise in the background of our vicious arguments and heartfelt apologies or the music can blare out, rattling the windows and bursting our eardrums as we shriek along to All Time Low. My very soul lies embedded in that jalopy, a part of me forever missing.

Bubble-Gum Lips and Bruises

                  Syrupy sweet, her drawling, “Oh honey!” rotted through my teeth. Taking it upon herself, as an unqualified psychologist, to make me feel better, Mrs. Green began extolling the virtues of life. Bleach blonde curls bobbing, she pursed bubble-gum pink lips in judgment. “Why, you’ve got your momma and school, and why, almost everything!” In the window behind her, my supposed peers frolicked about, full of innocence and life. Nobody sullied them, their mothers protected them; this I knew, as all children do, good mothers protect you. Mrs. Green tried, but this woman, this Southern Belle, could not understand. She had never seen what I had seen, or been where I had been. A part of me knew she didn’t have answers or solutions. Her cornflower blue eyes shined with naïveté and hope, I refused to destroy her innocence. So I sat silent, in thrift store hand-me-downs, with a bruise on my belly and two more on my back, watching her diamonds gleam.