This morning I'm thinking about Henry.
Everything about being with Henry was light through an open window, the heat traced and retraced and kings of leon. LA gets hot in May, June...
Safe, the only word that I can think of is safe, safe, safe. Heat wave, waking up on a bean bag chair, sticky wet with sweat. Let's get in the pool, yeah that's better, just get in the pool.
I would pull myself up out of the water to press my face against the hot ground, holding the heat from the sun like it's something precious, and I know now that it is.
We would take my car into Venice in the morning for coffee, somewhere way the hell out in Pasadena at night for all the more run-down art galleries. And sliding like a snake, with a can of spray paint.
This is what graffiti should be, I'm so sick of those crude black scribbles taking up the corner of my vision, that isn't art. I've seen five year olds do better.
Art is the stretching expanse of the side of the building, the gasoline smell of paint in your nose as you watch pictures bloom before your eyes. Henry laughs.
My car down santa monica blvd. Pull over, I wanna show you something, pull over, over, more expansive buildings and I'm in love with the idea that a canvas isn't enough to contain what he's thinking.
And even at night, it's so hot, the grease gun smell of the street roll- roll- rolling beneath my car, magnetic hum, where do you want to go? I ask him, anywhere. Just drive.
We would escape the mid day sun, going to the museum because the 3D deep sea adventure flick (45 minutes tops) is so much better then any blockbuster smash hit that's playing on the promenade. The relief of air conditioning, that leather and rubber smell of the theater and the way you know in the darkness that the light and the heat can't touch you.
This is what every day should be.
Walking to 7-11 to get popsicles, pulp fiction playing in the living room, and I collapse on the floor. The cat comes in, looks at me, leaves.
It's almost summer, and I'm so sick of school. Its too warm out to be contained in classrooms, let's just go to the beach. I wanna go to the beach.
Dinner with Henry's parents, school nights, we'll be back before eleven, I promise, we just want frozen yogurt.
Even at night, it was still always hot. Pull over, pull over.
My car, parked at the beach, and the white stripes playing loud as we climb into the backseat. Sprawled at odd angles and stretching and as long as I can see your face it's perfect.
And then laughing, collapsing, the music still thrumming, in the background the waves are crashing, the sea salt and briney smell of dirty sand. Lights in the distance, let's get out of here.
And sleeping, octapussed around each other, giant slumber party tangle-limb messes. "We can sleep in my sister's room, let's go"
And before I even blink the sun is back up, load up the car, the heat on the back of my neck. Everything tinged salty yellow through my sunglasses.
"Where do you want to go?" I ask him,
"Anywhere, just drive."