I wasn’t the girl you could take out to 
            dinner or a movie. This was 
            the movie. Off-white moon, gray milky
 
            blur, gnarled live oaks across
            the highway. Obsidian sheen on the Pacific. This
was as far as we would get. A bottle, a drive,
 
coming in for the close-up, and falling 
            asleep before the credits rolled—
            I wanted your grip on my shoulder, your 

            voice asking me to stay. I jumped barefoot out 
            of your truck, pieces of us in my pockets, 
December, the cold sand, fire pit smoke— This was
 
romance. Of course, there is no romance without 
            pain. I zipped it all back into my jeans, feeling 
            the way it worked down my legs, the tingling 

            of it up my arms, numbing my fingertips. 
            I put my hands up to stop the whirring 
in my ears. I could run the whole city

on my electricity for as long as I lived—