I. Lana
glances in the rearview mirror,
her cherry-red heart sunglasses staring back.
I sit in the shotgun seat,
hands resting in my lap
and thighs sticky against the vinyl.
She grins as the light turns green
and crushes her stilettoed foot the accelerator
so hard that I pitch forward and
smash my nose on the dashboard.
“Don’t wipe it away. Boys like a bloody nose, baby.”
She assures me. I nod,
checking myself in the side mirror.
I like the way my eyes look,
wide and glassy, watery
like a caught doe.
We speed through the neighborhoods,
laughing and lifting
up our tops for anyone who drives by.
My mouth tastes like methamphetamines and Cola slurpees.
She stops
in front of a house I recognize.
“Here we are, love.” Her words
blow out of her mouth like bubble letters.
“I’ll pick you up at midnight.”
My legs remain firmly stuck to the seat.
“I never said that I wanted to go anywhere.” I try to explain.
She can’t hear me
through the cloud of Parliament-smoke.
“You didn’t have to.” Her mandarin-orange-slice lips smirk.
“I know you miss him.” I open my mouth
but she presses a finger to my lips.
“You know you want to see him.” I pop open the car door,
entranced
by the lilt and croon of her voice.
I think I do
want to see him.
I think I do
miss him.
II. Halsey
and I drag the metal bats on the pavement.
They hum against the concrete.
“Do it.” She growls. I hesitate.
She hisses: “Don’t you remember what she did?”
Yeah.
I scream and crash
the bat through the windshield.
She whoops
and slings her own against the hood, cackling.
Her laugh is raspy
like the inside of her throat is coated with salt.
I laugh like that too
but it sounds more like I’m coughing.
She sings and raps to the beat of the car alarm blaring,
melodies bubbling past her lips like
soft-crack sugar syrup.
By the time the police arrive,
the car looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane.
We hide from the sirens
in the indoor public pool,
sinking to the bottom of the dive tank
to escape the flashing lights.
As we bob up
she wipes her makeup off on her arm;
oxblood lipstick smudges across her jaw.
We sit on the edge of the pool in our wet underwear,
with our feet dangling in the water
and my head resting on her shoulder.
Her voice echoes around the high ceilings,
music box notes and organ chords
drying my soaked eyelashes.
III. Lorde
holds my head in her lap,
stroking my hair as I gasp for air
between my sobs.
She hushes me gently
but I only cry harder. I grab fistfuls
of her skirt, choking on my own tears,
and she rubs my knuckles, easing my grip. Her thumb
massages circles on my spine, synth notes buzzing
out from behind her teeth
like bees.
The bees arrange themselves into letters:
I understand, my friend.
My wracking cries subside
to soft whimpers.
She smiles down at me,
and pulls me tighter into her
embrace. She feels like a young
willow trunk, solid but flexible,
bunches of her hair like leaves
brushing the tip of my nose
and getting caught in the crook of my arm.
We lay there,
suburban pastoral,
as the last declarations of the piano
beam through the muggy bedroom air.
“You wanna go for a walk?”
We walk to the playground and both
sprint for the swing set,
our feet on the gravel pounding out
4/4 beats.
Ainsley Louie-Suntjens is working towards her undergraduate of English and History at the University of Calgary. She is proudly Chinese-Canadian, and intrigued by femininity, pop culture, the suburbs and anything spooky. In her free time, she creates art of all kinds, whether it be painting, dancing or sculpting. She also reads avidly. You can find her at @ainsley.exe on Instagram.