I keep waking up in different

beds and in this same

body. I have to say this

right away so you know

it didn't start with limbs

slackened, hair

oily, a cruelty towards

the sun. It started

in the backseat of Jessica's

Pepto-dismal truck. She

tied my hair back with

rubber bands when

the freeway passed clean

through us. Jessica says

I can feel like a cherry

blossom tree wobbling

under lightning. Jessica

has a forehead scar from

the deep end of a pool. I

ask Jessica what drowning

feels like and she says

not everything feels like

something else. That night

we lose the 7/11 lottery

but I draw my lucky

number, no quarters

so we scratch our tickets

with hangnails. I guess

that's the sanctity of ritual—

a ceaselessness in how

I look at every drop

of rain before it touches

ground, the way Jessica

mouths my name in her

sleep eating each syllable like

a minor god. I'm coming out

as someone who loves

things unevenly, my theologies

strewn out in the dark,

this iPhone an almost-oracle.

Jessica forces me to watch

every sunset even when I

am full. She puts her fingers

in my mouth and says open

your eyes. Open them.

You see the small-town girls

on big billboards? One day

that's us.