Stress Michael Islas
I
t’s the 4th of February, my birthday. My mom is driving me around Asheville. We’re at a stoplight. She glances at her phone. I tell her I don’t think I’ll ever get a driver’s license. She notices the stoplight in my voice. She says something about my tourettes causing anxiety. I say something about the half-life of a 17 year old and asphalt. She wants to talk about how I’ve been doing. She doesn’t notice the cement already mixing in my throat. I tell her when I squint the road starts to splinter like buckshot and I swear I can already count the casualties. I tell her not to squint. I say that I hate the way my pill makes me feel. I say it makes me talk like a robot. Like my jaw is an unhinged tailgate and my mouth is an exhaust pipe. She asks me if this is how I really feel. I wanna say no. I wanna say it’s too hard to talk about how I really feel. Instead I notice how our seats start to drift apart, like little life-boats. How trauma can make anything splinter, like buckshot. Later in February, when my absence inhabits every place a good son should be; Inhabits the morning conversations, inhabits the evening dinners. Later still, when the asphalt doesn’t move, and the accident never moved, and my pills never moved. Later, when I am starting to inhabit every place my inertia used to. That I used to. That’s when I would admit to you that I’m trying, that these things take time.
69
