Oranges

-- This was written about four years ago. It's still one of my favorites. --

We're standing on the abyss when it ends. Looking down into the hole that used to be the Taco Hut we frequented on weekends when your parents weren't home and we knew that we could waste time, eat quesadillas, and then go home. To quiet houses, inviting beds, instead of movie theaters freshly dark or my old car--heat on but parked. This was good, this was something simple for us both. When we wanted to be just like lovers, grown up and passionate, more than kids with school on Monday and projects due. We were two in bed and side by side and I'd watch you look at me. I'd see your eyes go wild with shock and awe at how we got here without someone stopping us. Without someone putting us back where we were. Were we ever that lucky? Was it really only that long ago and not 365-day seconds? That's what I think when we're near the abyss.

Then we walk past the place where the meteors struck. We go back to your house and sit in your dad's truck. Remember when new boys and girls came to play and we split? For bigger better deals in bigger better places. When nicer looking faces appeared and we got scared. That youth might be unfruitful. That we might wind up like my parents--divorced after three years. That we might wind up like your parents--together for thirty. And which was worse? The chances not taken because they didn't need to be or the things given up without knowing their value? When you met yours and I couldn't stop you, or when I met mine and you cried on the phone. How we left each other alone. How we put scars on each other. How we almost destroyed one another. Now we're next to each other, and we look at each other, and we're here--alone--together in your dad's pick-up truck. And we just want quesadillas from the Taco Hut.

And you say--And I know--And I speak--And it's clear. Are there images I can't get out of my head? Yes. Are there places on you I don't know anymore? Are there bits of my consciousness you now won't reach? When you look at me shock and awe no longer exist, but there's that lovely memory and that one great kiss. I'm a school that you went to, a friend left behind. I'm a house that you lived in, a shirt you grew out of so long ago. I'm the happiest thought in the back of your mind. And we touch, and we're there, then we stop, and we're here. And decisions were made so that things would be clear. But now meteors fall and the news is just "Run." And the abyss we looked into makes smart debate dumb with it's complications and it's rules and the things we made up to keep away from each other. Words are etched on my brain that I'll never forget, but then we're side by side once more and I'm already regretting pushing you away, but I do it anyway, and then you push back. And this is how we knew that it would end. At that moment the ground starts shaking again.

It's funny. Our principles withstanding the elements. Because I still won't say "I love you" because I have someone else now, even though they got hit by falling debris when the fruit markets started imploding from the built up energy locked inside of oranges all these years. Yes, oranges are destroying the world and my newest love who occupied all my away messages was hit by a pineapple and died on the ground. My away message that night was "F**king pineapples." I heard that a papaya was what took out your fiancee. He was at the market next to the Taco Hut. I read it in your profile--"Always be with me--going out." Going out where, I thought. So I went to the abyss and there you were. Right before I left my house the tv said they just found out there are oranges in the Earth ready to explode. It's funny.

So now we bicker and say who should still be to blame. And I say I can't touch you, and God how I want to touch you. I can't see a mark on you left by those who came after me and made you who you are today. You still look like you did lying in bed in an empty house before fruit was what we know it to be now. Before pineapples and papayas made us strangely available once again. Before you and I decided we were bad for each other when it used to be that the only thing that ever made us feel good was each other. When you kissed my best friend. And when I slept with yours. When we became bad people who do bad things--unforgiveable things. When we made ultimatums and hatred seemed easy. Now everything's easy because everything's ending.

Now you open the door to the pick-up truck and walk back towards the abyss. I follow after you but what could I do if you jumped? But you don't jump when you get there; you only look down. So I do the same and we're here again looking down into nothing; and yet, where we've been. This is when it ends. So I wrap my hand around the back of your neck and you let your head fall onto my shoulder and we're not bad people anymore; just people. And what we didn't know about oranges might kill us, but what we don't know about each other still isn't anything bigger than what's before us.