Love, Lose, And Repeat

Beatrice: Young and Free

He said loving her was red, bleeding, warm like the lips she kissed with. She flicked ashes off cigarettes with a fragmented fuck you then a small laugh. She was always watering flowers and leaning over things for fun. She liked tasting ice-cream from the frozen-food section, she even brought her own spoon. Then, whenever he asked if he could see her again she always just said soon.

On late nights she drove on the wrong side of the street and sang old, forgotten country songs. She went by Beatrice because she said it sounded more like her then whatever it was her mom called her. She liked to laugh at nothing and feed her favorite duck and if she had a penny, she'd throw it on the ground, and wish for someone else's luck. He argued if she was sane when Beatrice wanted to go out dancing in the rain. He called her, his pain. They laughed under spotlights of sun, where curtains of clouds draped across gray-spotted grain. Where the street became their stage's drain.

He didn't dance when she wasn't with him. He wasn't happy when she wasn't with him. She used to call him lovely. She used to call him her lover though she never let him touch her. Only once when she drew needles to her skin like lover's fingers, she told him a lie, and touched her mouth with his to hold onto the high. She asked for him to try and promise things like to hold her hand in dress shops or to never call the cops if she got out of hand and acted like a helicopter in a down spin that didn't know where to land. He said he would be her landing strip.

Beatrice didn't like waiting her turn or stopping at yellow lights; she hated when people changed their minds and she didn't like getting in fights. She didn't like a lot of guys, they all reminded her of her father. She left everything half through asking, why even bother finishing when there is so much to do.

His Bea tried to get away, she liked to try new things. She liked to stand on rooftops and pretend that she had wings. She only liked sharp things with warning labels. She liked to take vodka to her eyes and dance on top of wobbling tables. He tried to tell her no. But there was no telling her no. He saw her tipping over sidewalks and skipping over words. He told her to go slow, when all she wanted to be was fast. She said, as long as she was here on earth she better be having a blast.

He loved her like a lock loves its only key. He loved her like somehow that was going to set him free. He loved her always and he loved her red and all that's left for him now--
is to love her dead.