At the Blue Swallow Motel, I could’ve been in love with her. We’d sit down on leather bar stools, pretend like we were a couple of cowboys. It’s dangerous not to, I would whisper. Yes, dangerous, you’d agree. You’d order whisky on ice, like a real cowboy, and I’d order a shitty beer to stop myself from getting something more ambrosial or a something sunrise. The problem is I’m always thinking about these things

At the Blue Swallow Motel, I could’ve been in love with her. There’s a whole world there, of could’ves, but I’ve never felt ready. She’d sit down on a bar stool, and I’d spin it backwards towards me and kiss her kiss her kiss her then die

I guess I don’t really know anything about her except she looks like Ella Yelich-O’Connor but with green eyes and maybe that is why I can’t talk about this. All I know is that everybody says they have green eyes but she really does that she hides her mouth behind her hair when she gets nervous she keeps her vulnerability in and around her mouth mine is more diffuse. That when she was a kid she would suck the water from her hair after jumping in the lake or the pool likes apricots once I saw her use lavender oil drop it on her wrist a few times and sniff so she could present something to a crowd without shaking I asked for some felt like we were trying a new drug for the first time together it was only lavender oil

At the Blue Swallow Motel, I’d ask a stranger for a coin just to stick it in the jukebox and pick something for you. He’d probably say no

At the Blue Swallow Motel, I’d challenge a stranger to a game of darts, bet a coin on it. I’d win, stick the coin in the jukebox and pick something for you. I’d ask you to dance I’d hope the world could disappear around me but the second you go away to buy another drink there’s a man there he’s telling me he likes what we are doing here. Everytime I think I have the whole precious moon in my hands he comes up to stick a flag in it I was never allowed to own this. I try to talk about this but I never can and it is not because I don’t know her or that she closes her eyes while running once literally ran off a bridge and fell 20 feet into a stream because of it that she presses flowers in notebooks every summer there is a drive-in in her town and she loves it. Its because it was never really mine and once I thought we were alone somebody would press the flood lights on and an audience would clap I’d wonder did I want this? Who did I do this for? The world is lost now, and I can go on without it but I wish I hadn’t had to

At the Blue Swallow Motel, we would make a cave of used quilts and color TV and bad wine and walls that are Tequila Sunrise pink and the quiet sound of glowing neon outside and we’d move to the shower kiss and fuck until time became timeless and I’d shut the blinds so tight we would not need to know when dawn came hounding us. We’d fall asleep on top of the covers I would not even wonder whose side of the bed the nightstand with the King James Bible was on because there would be no sides of the bed we’d curve and spill like tributaries into it into each other all over one another and sweat would bloom where our skin touched mostly everywhere and I’d whisper the words of the Blue Swallow Benediction on the wall like a lullaby chant. Somewhere in another life, I’d say, this happens forever. Somewhere in another life we stay. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities