Etta and Ann

Your eyes are red from the traffic lights and our lack of sleep. I look over at you. Admire the way the light catches perfectly on the tops of your cheeks. A line runs from your hairline to the tip of your chin. And I look over at you and see your lashes growing into the heat. Freckles added to your iris, I don’t like symmetry, I prefer perfection. I prefer you. There’s an optical illusion I often make you into. We blend your graphite cheekbones, and a part of me always wanted to look like you.

“Would you hold me if you had to?” We ask.
“I’d kill you if I had to.”
“Hold me.” We touch necks in the back seat. I lean further and press my lips into the corner of your mouth.

“Did you ever get that baby removed?”
“I’d rather die of an infection.” You lift my legs over yours and I wrap my arms around your
torso, pulling you down with me. Your head is on my chest, my hand over your hair. Tracing the patterns of your 1920’s slicked curls. There is a tear drawn onto our cheek. And dollops of mascara in the corners of our eyes are what keeps us pretty.

“Etta baby, tell me. Where are we now? When we get home, will we love like this? Or will we
drown again? Etta baby, tell me, are we rotting? Or becoming one?” You repeat it back to me.
“Ann, who in our fat hearts cares?”
“Etta baby, I’m just wondering if I kiss you now, or I save it for our bed.” We shift our body, ‘til our lips are nose away. I shape our mouths to your liking. We met in the womb, on the page, in the janitorial closet. I’ve never known myself, never wanted us more. Close your wrists around mine baby, tell me you’ve never loathed yourself more, we can lose the weight of one another.

We can starve each other and still have the height to melt into one. We wonder if we exchange our beauty like whores, or if our love belongs in the back seat.
“Would you kill me if you had to?” We ask.
“I’d hold you if I had to.”
“Etta baby, hold me tonight. Etta baby, we die tonight. And in the morning, I’ll redraw you.”