write this
emmer effer
a pretend genius broadsuction
some days are better than none
Kingshighway Motel
Lisa Harrison
The cars pass me by, on this dusty, dirty road
as I watch from the window of my mind.
I try so hard to tell myself, “You aren't really here.”
But, I fear,
I know the truth.
My imagination isn't that good.
I see the woman carrying the sheets that I will sleep on.
She drops them by the door, and turns
with some kind of knowing look in her eyes.
I don't get why.
I think
she doesn't like me.
Alone again, I pick up my notebook, remembering how happy I'd been cause I'd had an
extra dollar to buy it.
But it's red, and I
don't like the color.
Anyway, I sit and write of nothing, nothing.
There's nothing to say.
I feel no connection to this world, these people
Even the children, black and white,
so pretty, with their delicate features and tiny hands.
The next morning, I wake up to find two twenty-dollar bills on the
endtable.
One for her.
One for me.
There was also a note
which said
a lot of things, mostly misspelled, and with terrible grammar.
I feel my respect for him slide down a notch
or two.
But, at least I have money.
I get dressed and go out to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Despair, despair grows like a fog in my heart.
It clouds my mind.
I don't belong here, I tell myself.
Did I say that already?
I sit down on the steps outside the door to our room. The sun reflects off the glossy red cover of my notebook, and my mind whispers, harsh and insistent, “Write something. Do something. Be something!”
I can't imagine anything except this lost highway motel,
cold concrete, and dust on cheap furniture.
The janitor walks over
and asks me something about Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Do I want some?
Yeah
I think I do, but I don't have any money.
“Oh, I'll buy it,” he says.
He sends her to pick up the chicken, and she comes back,
out of breath and hysterical,
bucket of chicken, and a bag overflowing with biscuits, cole slaw, and gravy bouncing as she runs towards me.
“He was there. He followed me. He says he knows where you are!”
Oh.
Well, so what?
Who cares?
I feel strange - kind of nervous about it, but not really.
I mean, life is over anyway, so who cares if he finds me and beats me up and insists
that I love him?
I'm not really here, anyway.
How can he find me?
I wish someone would love me for real.
That would make things better, I think.
But who could ever love me?
Even if such a man existed, he wouldn't find me here, in this
rundown highway motel.
Kingshighway, my ass.
Like any King would ever stay here.
Or even me, for that matter.
Then I remind myself,
I'm not.
Oh yeah, keep forgetting that.
I follow her inside and close the door. The room smells like chicken.
I grab a piece, and sit down on the floor.
Old, ugly carpet, and it's blue.
Just like me.
The next morning, I take a shower and wash my hair.
I can't see anything but the sky
out the dirty kitchenette window, as I try
to dry my hair in the wind.
But there is no wind.
So, I take my pathetic little notebook, and stuff it in my bag.
Down, down deep, where no one will ever find it and see
that I was here, after all.
I tuck his little note inside, as well.
Maybe I'll find it years from now, and remember
who I am.
The End
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