Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Julie Beveridge: COLD HANDS TOUCH MY FACE

I consider leaving this place, pushing my thumb into the oncoming traffic and rolling through. There is always less to leave behind than waits ahead, you just have to know what cars to get into and which to wave on. I walk backwards down the motorway the wind egging me on. The first thing I see is an indicator … a family sedan, dusty mud flaps, empty baby seat slows and pulls over. His gentle bearded face smiles me into the passenger seat and I tell him that I’m going to the city, my car broke down and I have contacts there. He is safe, he fiddles with the radio whistling along to every new tune. The heat of the day lets me drift into sleep. I feel him driving next to me. I will wake up fresh, a whole new road ahead.

cold hands
touch my face
they are not mine


II.

I poke my tongue through my lips and taste the glue that keeps the tape across my mouth. My skirt damp and hot, I can smell myself in my hair, pungent and scared. The pulse between my tightly bound wrists beats its way through my body. I thud along in time with the sounds of Dusty Springfield that are being filtered through from somewhere.

blood stained sleeves
still I think
of you


III.

Sweat congeals my eyelids closed as I squint against the light. Rope burns form on the inside of my wrists, I cease my struggle. Hot breath moves around my skin merging the space between me and him. His face, tiny pixels bleeding into one another. His unkempt mustache tickles my neck. My thoughts leave my body, heavy as stone. There is something familiar about his face, something I cannot identify … sunlight glints off his mirrored glasses.

behind the shades
a murder
of crows feet


by Julie Beveridge
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
first published in Home is where the Heartache is, 2007

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