“Nothin’ out there but sad and gloom
I don’t wanna live
in a big old tomb”
—Tom Waits

“Pasture, pasture,” James said, his head tilted to the stars, the darkness swallowing his words. I was in love with him, so I paid close attention to his mouth in the rearview mirror when he spoke.

I knew he didn’t love me. That brought its own kind of relief.

My 1978 Ford Courier wheezed under the weight of us—James and his friends stacked in the back of the truck bed like discarded bodies, and me, sober, driving through pastoral fields that understood the expansiveness of God.

“Vomit, vomit,” he managed to say next, scanning right to left, his body leaning over the edge into the toddling night. He didn’t vomit.

The Goddess of the Feral rode shotgun, draped us in bliss. Our courage was suicidal against the armor of ambivalence. We clung to it, patched ourselves with LSD and laughter, our hooves kicking at the underbelly of the Holy. The night had a spine, and we scraped along it.

I drove fast enough to blur the fields into a furious pastiche of the far reaches. The future was a broken bottle rattling around dangerously, sharp enough to hold us accountable but never sharp enough to cut through the noise.