Canadian Lesbians

On my most recent trip into town, while quietly puffing a camel product, under the sound of the wheels pressing against frozen pavement and ice, I couldn't help but catch myself in the middle of a song-memory. You know, where the lyrics from something specific seem to tangle in my daydreaming and collect memories like dreamcatcher; hanging above my bed, long-ago purchased on vacation, made by the fingers of a typecasted native. So after sifting through a parking lot full of icy puddles, stepping out onto the sidewalk, my peripheral vision catches a short-haired woman holding the door open for an old man dressed what could have easily been dumpster clothes, grey hair falling past his shoulders.
     I'm stunned at what I'm caught up in, the sensation of my lower-limbs misfiring signals to my brain, causing the indescribable discomfort from the waste-down, my muscles achingly working against their every will. And I wish I were sitting, confined to chair dawned with wheels and pushed my the arms of my most-trusted, yet I fight it. The atrophy is a trophy prevailing denial, and whatever it is that nature has cursed me with causing my face to permanently settle into a frown. The short-haired woman walked to her small car, the crunching of snow echoing in the stark quiet of winter. The old man wandered past, as I approached the door... I heard the words of another short haired woman somewhere in the world, whispering sentiments in past-memory. I'd stood when I could stand, and sat while I couldn't. I can remember shifting in the distinctly hard wooden pews of the Ryman and Tegan and Sara played songs I'd heard and understood, yet never guessed I'd see live.
      And however this relates to a gas station, I'm not sure. But I know that the cold makes me remember the sensation of eyeing a cold beer in the hand of a gentleman, his arm resting around the slender shoulders of a dyed-red ginger, her glasses reflecting the hair from the woman seated in front of her. And all I could think of after contemplating the memory, was three nights ago, tanked under six shots of vodka, and I was thinking about these specific lyrics... And how you can't help but look at a person when you're intoxicated, and imagine what they're arms looked like when they were younger.
     My arms, entangled years ago with the arms of another, both reaching past the air we nervously pushed in front of our faces in order to pretend we weren't scared. I felt you in my arms, I wrapped my arms around the promise of something warm to wake up to. Something aspiring to dream to, drunk of vodka isn't how I feel walking past the isles of dairy-based treats juice bottles. I probably am in need of vitamins, yet supplements and valiant effort have only proved worthless when the pain churns in my uncomfortably sore ass-muscles, and legs. My thighs so tight, and suddenly they relax when I'm envisioning a concert I attended months ago. And the words she sung, and the arms... Those arms, and how they felt so different, like the curve of my face after losing fifty pounds. Different, but distinct and similar.
     I don't want a soda, I don't want a cigarette. I want to get in my car and drive home. Instead, I get in my car and drive nowhere. The album spinning lightening-fast while the worlds trickle through the thickened mesh of inaccurate recollection. My arms press hard against the steering wheel, cold like the leather seats I'd leaned against... sore from the standing, sore from the trying the day at hand. And his hands are warm, and larger than mine, they steadily plug the holes in the wall where my trust leaks through. He'd push me in that chair, he's my warmth in the morning. And the arms as they tangled, like cats in the morning when you're trying to get dressed playful, vicious, and careless. Watching the mayhem as they insist they're stronger with longer arms. Suddenly the song changes, and I recall the feeling of beer steepening my ability to hold my face up towards the light.
     In those dark nights before, laying sober under the weight of impossible demands, I would focus on my fingers as they wrapped around one another tightly. "here's the church, here's the steeple.." I knotted my fingers together around the steering wheel and wondered idly how many people have wrapped their hands in such a manner and prayed for something. I'm wishing for myself that the ice continues to crunch without fight, that the phone will ring and someone will dawn laughter. I hear the sounds of canadian lesbians sharing their plight, I'm relating with the video-images of captivated jews resting against a rock in the heat of an Austrian day. I was thinking I was lucky, if I redefined luck. I was thinking I could think a lot more under six shots of vodka, but tonight I'll just rest my head against the will to stare my awkward curiosity directly in the face; I stare out my window as the lights flicker softly... and the people drive by. And the traffic always slows to a stop at night, I wonder where these folks are going. I wonder if it hurts their calves to sit in a driving position for more than ten minutes. I wonder what it feels like to wrapped against another without the pressure of one's leg being far too overbearing for me to handle.
     My eyelashes stuck together, I had shed a tear or two in retrospect. And I don't regret it, though my face shows my emotion like a zombie. Not hungry for brains, nor attention or conversation, my car stays in motion until my driveway is quiet and my car sits still, I'm not going to nashville tonight. And I won't hear those songs again, until the mood strikes hard with a fist of disappointment, pressed hard against my chest. When drunk, the lyrics make me consider the width of the arms once wrapped differently, differently proportioned. And settled and shifted in memory.