When I Was 15

When I was 15


Summer was hanging around our necks
like a noose
when Karen and I decided to run away.
We were sitting on her bed, watching
her little brother watch us. She'd mouth
the words," Save me," and I'd nod.

"Dad paid me ten bucks so you
don't fuck," he would say
every few seconds.

"Call him Dan, Dad lives across
town," she would say.

"If you want to make out,
I won't tell," he'd say
and we'd kiss like fugitives.
Thirty seconds would pass,
then he'd interrupt,

"Take me to the store to get some candy,
or I'll tell Dad you were fucking in here."

He'd settle his brown eyes on us
like a vulture.

Karen would say, "we didn't do nothing."

"That's too bad cause Dad paid me ten
bucks to make sure you don't fuck."

All we needed was a ride somewhere
like Texas or Arizona,
somewhere they'd be too lazy
to follow. All we had to do was wait

till her brother got off work and then sneak
over to his place. Where we sat
on his couch and listened to him talk
about his tats. He had a chain from his ears
to his nose, his nose to his nipples,
and down somewhere else.

I stood while she went to use the bathroom,
like I'd seen them do in old movies.

"You must really love her," her brother said
and I sat back down to the quiet
of her absence.

After a couple hours we realized her brother
was a dead end. Her Dad lived next door,
though.

He sat on the sofa,
drank Jack Daniels and told me
about how his new wife was so
loose, it was like fucking a jar of mayo.

"Don't get married, boy," he said. "Biggest
mistake you'll ever make," then a drink.

When the bottle was empty,
he left to find his wife.

"There's a room back here," Karen said.

"The lights don't work but it's private."
Then inside,

holding hands and no one could see.
"You're so sweet, I'll do anything
to keep you," she said.

She told me about the scar on her arm
where she'd stabbed
herself with an ice pick,
about her step father's ex-cop
hands, about how her mother had never
seen him
naked because he weighed over five hundred
pounds, but she had,
and I strained her blond hair
through fingers I knew
couldn't save her and listened.



C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Thunder Sandwich