Page 96 - The Bridge Vol 17_pgs

The Bridge

“Relaja. Drink this.”

Lights out. Drowning.

Gritando en silencio. I swam to the surface, acid scorching my lungs. Was it hours or minutes later?
Maybe it was days. The glow from the dumb solar tea lights on my back porch ricocheted off the
fan in my window. Prisms of light crashed through my room, against the wall, against the mirror,
illuminating every muscle in your body.

“I’m too fucking high for this.”

“Don’t worry, te queiro.”

You were standing over me like a Greek fucking statue. You were George Washington crossing the
Potomac. Your erection was silhouetted against the fucked up kaleidoscope backdrop. I was inside
a cheap disco ball. I was tripping too hard. My bones were fused to the bed. I was buried alive. I
couldn’t move.

I pushed you away. You pushed back.

“NO” exploded across my brain, bounced off the walls, shattered. Fell like confetti. Filled the room. It
was red. I was too fucking high.

“It’s going to be okay. No tenga pena. Te quiero.”

Everything smelled like soil. Soil dredged raw by conquering armies. Soil soaked in blood. Soil the
color of rust. Matted crows picking at human carcasses scattered amongst barbed wire and trenches.
Flies buzzing. Fresh meat rotting.

Estoy aqui, con los cadaveres. Estoy aqui, en la sangre.

My wrists twisted and burned in your grip.

“Please,” you said with each thrust (I hate that word). Your voice was so thin, so fragile. It was a
newborn fawn stumbling around, blind and warm and wet. It could’ve died at any moment. You were
too fucking high.

“Please, te quiero.”

You said please. So maybe it wasn’t.

You watched your mother die. So maybe it wasn’t.

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