several days after he beat
the marijuana smoke out
of me, I looked into her
bruised eyes over a grilled
cheese we split at Clifton's
downtown and agreed to
let her borrow money for
a Greyhound ticket.
we had been flirtatious
behind his back. she
revealed her bra to me in
paparazzi flashes when she
got drunk, and I showed her
my man tits and she helped
me try the bra on, which made
him wonder what we were
both laughing at.
weeks later, I received a
postcard she had filled out
in sloppy cursive from her
grandmother's house in
Lincoln, Nebraska. she
said she'd miss me and
asked for the name of a
Neil Young album I always
played for her, having left a
kiss made of crimson lipstick
in the margin underneath
my misspelled name.
I stayed behind in that drug
den the three of us inhabited:
just me and Neil wailing from
the grooves of that old vinyl
record, trapped there with our
lonely boy choir of a heartbreaking
song on parallel roads bound for
the same no where.
___
Kevin Ridgeway is from Southern California, where he lives and writes. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chiron Review, Re)verb, LUMMOX, San Pedro River Review, the Chaffey Review, Right Hand Pointing, Bicycle Review. American Mustard and The Mas Tequila Review. His latest chapbooks are On the Burning Shore (Arroyo Seco Press, 2014) and Riding Off Into That Strange Technicolor Sunset (Weekly Weird Monthly, 2015).
