Stage eight: TheKind ofSilent Ride Home
3:03 AM
“New York, New York, my dirty little slut.
“You sing to my soul, and get me fucked up,”
Celie belts into the night,
both arms dangling out the car window,
fingers cutting through the cold,
reaching for something already gone.
Manhattan spray paints her skin.
Gold from the streetlamps.
Red from the neon signs.
Blue from a NYPD cruiser.
By 3 a.m., she’s no longer a girl.
She’s a brick wall to graffiti,
and New York is in the mood to tag her wild.
One of those splatter-piece works of art that no one understands until they’re high or drunk.
She sinks back inside the sedan,
slides the window up,
and stretches, boneless,
all lazy-limbed with vodka on her breath.
“Deadass—nobody rides for me like you.
“You my heart, Allie. My whole fuckin’ heart.”
And then her eyes flutter.
If she passes out fast, heartbreak loses interest.
Sadness doesn’t fuck with you if you’re unconscious.
But with Celie? This is tradition.
She keeps burying herself in boys
as if her heart has a thousand lives left,
always picking glass out of her chest and calling it love.
Hurt, haunt, repeat.
