Or will you use it as the soundtrack to your
drive back home upstate?
Maybe you’ll swing the car around,
head back over to my place.
Play it for me outside my window,
in one of those handheld boomboxes.
We always talked about grand gestures.
We always talked about fate.
That song by The Killers takes you
back to high school and the medley of girls
who fell for steel-blue eyes and the
titanium tough guy thing. I have a similar
admiration for the way
you still haven’t decided who it is you want
to be. You once told me your greatest fear
is that having the answers is what makes
the magic disappear.
As if some brutish equalizer
will come to collect your fondest memories
and scrub you clean of all the things that once
made you pure. Not pure in the sense of a
sugary pink pop song, but how an
angsty athlete turns inside out his
tortured soul, and laments that he
is far too feeling for this world.
What could have been
if we’d shared headphones on a
crowded bus in 12th grade?
Synchronously seventeen.
Fractures of broken promises,
fates sealed inside of parked cars.
My affection echoed
in the back corners
of a gymnasium in Anytown,
USA. There are no what-ifs now.
No cross-state colleges or under-the-
bleachers ultimatums. I’ve built my courage.
Did you ever find yours? or did it wash out
on a football field one rainy Friday night?
All I really know is if I stay up late,
resuscitate your Radiohead remains,
part of me will always wonder
if I’ll hear from you again.
Gina Apav is a pink-collar worker and multi-genre writer. She graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a concentration in creative writing. Her work has been published in Maudlin House and Livina Press Magazine. She is inspired by people, pop culture, and the passage of time.
