THINGS THAT I PUT INTO SARAH’S MOUTH
I.

“The only girl I ever loved was born with roses in her eyes…” The song with that lyric plays on the outdoor speakers, sounding something like summertime, like cherries under my thumbnails and red dripping down the front of my blouse. But in the mountains it is cold. There are tea lights that are dim. In the woodshed behind Sarah’s house there is a small purple something hanging from a chair:

“Why do you have such a small belt? Is it a baby belt?”

“No… it's a dog belt.”

We laugh and forget the word for collar.

We run out of the shed, past a lake and a family graveyard. We don't know those bones but I know what it feels like to know a dead girl. Her text messages are in my phone. I don’t look at them but I keep them there. It seems fucked up to delete a dead girl’s texts. It seems pointless. She is already gone. I know that it is only productive to think of what is here because only what is here can think of me. But still, I think about the dead girl while I look at the girl that is sitting next to me, on a bench suspended from a tree. Sarah is like the dead girl, like me. Bipolar.

“Sarah.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to switch?”

I trade the carrot that I am smoking out of for the apple that she has. Sarah asks me if I want to shotgun. I nod my head up and down and the motion causes my face to feel cold. I feel excited to touch Sarah’s lips. Sarah takes a hit from the carrot and inhales. I press my lips, slightly opened, against hers as she exhales into my mouth.

II.

I'm on campus a day earlier than the last day of winter break. I walk up two flights of steps to get from my second floor dorm room to Sarah’s third floor dorm room. I knock on the door and hope that she is on campus a day earlier than the last day of winter break as well. Sarah opens the door. She is wearing plaid flannel pajama pants and a grey tank top. I ask her if she wants to walk around or sit or stand or lay down with me. We decide to walk. I watch her put on jeans and a sweater.

We walk to the 7-11 and then we walk through the Crim Dell Meadow. We sit in the leaves next to two bronzed statues of a couple in love. The guy statue is lying down on his side and the girl statue is sitting upright. She is reading a letter. Sarah and I mimic their poses and eat black pepper kettle chips.

Sarah takes out a pack of lucky strikes and talks about pelicans and the 50s. Her face becomes animated and she uses her hands to make pelicans and abstract art in the air in front of our faces. She talks about how her grandfather locked himself in his basement and drew portraits of pelicans from memory until died. She lifts up her shirt to show me a pelican tattoo that I’ve seen before. I look at the tattoo again and I take the cigarette out of Sarah’s mouth and place it into the mouth of the statue. We watch the statue smoke and think about taking an instagram picture.


III.

In the attic of our building we sit on an old couch and watch a show about pets that have killed their owners but Sarah isn’t really paying attention to the show about pets that have killed their owners. She is on her laptop showing her breasts and her ass to strangers on Chatroulette. I throw pieces of popcorn at Sarah’s body to try to win over her attention from strangers on the Internet. Sarah turns to me and concentrates on my hand. I lob a piece of popcorn into the air and she it in her mouth.

“Where did you get the popcorn?”

“I found it on the floor next to the couch. It should be OK.”

After a few minutes Sarah becomes board of Chatroulette and interested in the show about pets that have killed their owners. We both eat the floor popcorn and watch the TV as a man is eaten alive by his pet komodo dragons. We then watch as the komodo dragons subsist off of his flesh until the police arrive, weeks later.

IV.

Weeks later I receive an email from Sarah:

Hey,
I'm not sure if you have heard but I had to leave school for the rest of the semester. I had a pretty bad episode of mania and needed to have access to my support network at home. It was so wonderful getting to know you this semester and I want to keep in touch. Your tin is on my desk but I smoked whatever was left in there. Please pick it up before you leave for finals because otherwise I'm not sure how I'll get it to you.

Love,
Sarah