Remain

I'm sorry for how things turned out. 

But there were voices screaming at us 

as we drove down the freeway

in the middle of nowhere. 

It wasn't easy 

concentrating on your gentle voice

telling me stories of snow and heat 

and bruises and Spain. 

Because those shouts of warning 

and threat drowned it all out. 

The screaming wind continuously fluttered the pages of your bestselling book. 

Wasted money, unread words. 

Yet we kept on driving 

until the radio buzzed static and

until our car died.

You told me it would be okay. 

It was night when you took my hand 

and led me into a vast stretch of violets and cold grass. 

We stared at the stars because we ran out of gas to drive and 

stories to tell. 

Somehow we knew it was okay

that we'd never find our way back home, 

we'd never have anything to say because we had nowhere to go 

or nothing to do. 

Even if the stars didn't last forever, 

our skin melting if a heat wave struck, 

our bones brittle if a blizzard howled. 

Our hands remained locked, entwined

like a diary whose key a little 

girl threw to the bottom of the ocean. 

Like a century old house where death and vines creeped up on whitewashed fences, 

memories and ghost's footsteps

remaining. 

                          --Yusra Arub

Author's Note

I hope the last part makes sense