The Torn-Up Road

[outstretched]

Richard Siken



1

There is no way to make this story interesting.

A pause, a road, the taste of gravel in the mouth. The rocks dig into my skin
      like arrowheads.
And then the sense of being smothered underneath a sack of lentils
            or potatoes, or of a boat at night slamming into the dock again
                                          without navigation, without consideration,
heedless of the planks of wood that are the dock,
                                                                  that make up the berth itself.


2

      I want to tell you this story without having to confess anything,
without having to say that I ran out into the street to prove something,
                                                                                that he didn't love me,
that I wanted to be thrown over, possessed.
                                    I want to tell you this story without having to be in it:
      Max in the wrong clothes. Max at the party, drunk again.
Max in the kitchen, in refrigerator light, his hands around the neck of a beer.
                                                Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.
I'm surprised that I say it with feeling.
      There's a thing in my stomach about this. A simple thing. The last rung.

3

Can you see them there, by the side of the road,
                                                                              not moving, not wrestling,
making a circle out of the space between the circles? Can you see them
      pressed into the gravel, pressed into the dirt, pressing against each other
in an effort to make the minutes stop—
                  headlights in all directions, night spilling over them like
gasoline in all directions, and the dark blue over everything, and them
                                                                              holding their breath—

4

I want to tell you this story without having to say that I ran out into the street
                                          to prove something, that he chased after me
            and threw me into the gravel.
And he knew it wasn't going to be okay, and he told me
                                                                              it wasn't going to be okay.
And he wouldn't kiss me, but he covered my body with his body
      and held me down until I promised not to run back out into the street again.

But the minutes don't stop. The prayer of going nowhere
                                                                                          going nowhere.

5

His shoulder blots out the stars but the minutes don't stop. He covers my body
            with his body but the minutes
don't stop. The smell of him mixed with creosote, exhaust—
                                          There, on the ground, slipping through the minutes,
trying to touch them. Like taking the same picture over and over, the spaces
      in between sealed up—
Knocked hard enough to make the record skip
                                and change its music, setting the melody on its
forward course again, circling and circling the center hole in the flat black disk.
            And words, little words,
words too small for any hope or promise, not really soothing
                                                                          but soothing nonetheless.