The Circus in Me

by S.M. Bjarnson

  We barely made it anywhere with his tyrant attitude. Briggs struggled with my adolescent ways of not repeating similar truth, he admitted to me hours before departure. If I didn’t know better, I would assume that Briggs is a little emotional, and might have got his inner manhood feelings tainted.

  Sobering silence not aiding to the cause. Ideas to move past this hot air became too thick to breathe.

  Remove ourselves from the Idahoan border. Our way past the Wyoming plains into the Colorado suburbs. Each cycle the tire stole, I released another exhausting breath.

  Placed his arm around me as if to make the statement pretty clear, we were here for him. I didn’t ask for this. My expression told him so.

  Endless roads toward exile droned on. The victims included are those upon our sleeves.

  I reckon he stopped wondering why I hadn’t said it back to him, why my body didn’t fling to his in excitement.

  Youngsters in the summer tide pool; alive on hopes and dreams we never thought reasonable, let alone possible. I couldn’t plunge myself head first into the deep water when I was the one terrified of drowning in its depths.

  I flinched toward his hand. Gentle to move it away.

  “What do you want from me?” I spoke in a hasty tone, knowing too well where this conversation was going. Then, I remembered things weren’t always as realistic as the story line.

  He shifted the gears and glares toward me. He began to shrug in undeniable fear or defeat.

  “Well, are you going to say anything to me, or are we going to spend the next two days driving in this stinky car outfitting sulks of muteness?” Pouts of uncanny motions.

  “Don’t you think you talk too much, girl?” Arm positioned on the driver’s window sill. Clockwise steering performed by the other part.

  “I don’t think I talk much. In fact, the silence I’m accustomed to, you would never survive!” Exclamatory to defense mechanisms.

  “I’d like to see that!” He punched off the radio station. Fingers zipper his open mouth to sealed; banned from speech. Twenty or so minutes passed, and it seemed I was the one tortured by the noiseless conversation in progress.

  Be prepared for times like this unsettling disposition, they would accuse I’ve placed upon myself for benefitting purposes.

  What do we benefit from silence; a thought or two, the cascading movements of a fallen river? Or do we realize without words we are nothing but creatures, mooches of the nomad?

  Fidgets in fingers gave me away. His laughter erupted and finally the first to cave.

  “Couldn’t handle not hearing my pleasant voice complementing yours, darling?” His thumbprints tapping away at the bottom of the wheel.

  “Your wishes deceive you, my good knight.” I smirked at the snarky remark.

  Exits from the highway agreed to allow us passage. The side of a gravel road Briggs decides to stall. Caught in more to-be-clarified-later confusion.

  “Now listen here! I am here for you, and you alone. You could be a little more affectionate towards me. I did bleed my heart dry to you.”

  “I… ugh.”

  “What no comeback to that sweetie?” His hand holding it’s placement on top of mine. Judgment call states that as a sign of ownership.

  Exit the vehicle the same way I entered. His grip didn’t let up, I became slothful to scramble.

  “Where do you think you’re going Trae? We have earlier engagements to attend. Colorado Springs, ring-a-ding that bell in your head?” There was no way we would escape out of the boonies.

  “Let go of me!” Fumbling on each word. I realized this was the monster I waited for so long. Knocks at my door, beckoning in the shadows of the space I ‘d given him to linger. The assailant to the very crime so scared of portraying.

  Meanwhile, moves after me and for a minute I’m not the one afraid. Slow motion sequences eluding myself from the catastrophe.

  Finally losing his grimace, the grip around my wrist less heavy. Sunshine started to show through the compact clouds.

  “Trae…” Behind a young man strangled with tears, knees deep in rocky matter.

  I took steps onward from his tiding aches.

  “Briggs! How can you be you serious? Interpretation of your feelings by clamoring on that you only want me. Bled your heart dry? Not in the slightest of actions did you achieve carnage. Let me share a little secret about your confession boy. It wasn’t out of compassion, or the undying love you claimed for me…”

  “I do love you, Trae Lae.” His palms open toward the sky.

  “…your statement coheres by nothing other than your boyish needs and childlike wishes.” I continued to state my case. Front fully facing him.

  “The thing about confessions is they are always coming. This is nothing other than a ploy. Common way to distribute mortal needs in the face of God.” My breath caught wind and he fluttered the way it came to him.

  “The pulsating inside your cavity conducted rhythms for yourself. You look at a girl like me and see someone who has been unblemished from the world you grew up in. Young lady at her prime, ready to be harvested. I am in no need of your sickle.” My knees folding beneath me.

  Now I was the one face to face with the land that had betrayed us. The penetrating voice in my head, begging me to ask for forgiveness, to repent of talking to a man in such a way.

  I’d stood beaten, mocked, taunted, poked and prodded estimated possible. Things were never going to be the same. The second I stepped foot off the land my fore fathers produced, I became ultimately doomed.

  Doomed in the sight of my beloved, inches away from freedom and knowledge. Troubled in half consciousness he would strike me down.

  I turned myself around toward him. His head still buried in the paneled shirt. The feet between us were clear as I made my way crawling to his behalf.

  Our toes nudging at the locations of our bodies. He began to look at me like I was the one with the solutions.

  Taking his hand I rubbed smooth callused knuckles across my cheeks. I pleaded with him in harmony to let this go; to let me go. His blue eyes rippling with water works.

  My shaking figure, giving into the love he offered to give to me. I allowed my feet to stabilize our beings. In one stomp I led us to the car, other imprints directed course to the light. Nameless territories we both called love.

 

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