Read Crush for Free Online Page A

won't heal, and the stain stays put, the red light streaming in
    from everywhere at once. Your broken ribs, the back of your head, your
    hand to mouth or hand to now, right now, like you mean it, like it's split-
    ting you in two. Now look at the lights, the lights.

    16
    You and your lover are making out in the corner booth of a seedy bar.
    The booths are plush and the drinks are cheap and in this dim and
    smoky light you can barely tell whose hands are whose. Someone raises
    their glass for a toast. Is that the Hand of Judgment or the Hand of
    Mercy? The bartender smiles, running a rag across the burnished wood
    of the bar. The drink in front of you has already been paid for. Drink it,
    the bartender says. It's yours, you deserve it. It's already been paid for.
    Somebody's paid for it already. There's no mistake, he says. It's your drink,
    the one you asked for, just the way you like it. How can you refuse Hands
    of fire, hands of air, hands of water, hands of dirt. Someone's doing all
    the talking but no one's lips move. Consider the hairpin turn.

    17
    The motorbikes are neck and neck but where's the checkered flag we
    all expected, waving in the distance, telling you you're home again,
    home? He's next to you, right next to you in fact, so close, or. . . he isn't.
    Imagine a room. Yes, imagine a room: two chairs facing the window but
    nobody moves. Don't move. Keep staring straight into my eyes. It feels
    like you're not moving, the way when, dancing, the room will suddenly
    fall away. You're dancing: you're neck and neck or cheek to cheek, he's
    there or he isn't, the open road. Imagine a room. Imagine you're danc-
    ing. Imagine the room now falling away. Don't move.

    18
    Two brothers: one of them wants to take you apart. Two brothers: one
    of them wants to put you back together. It's time to choose sides now.
    The stitches or the devouring mouth? You want an alibi? You don't get
    an alibi, you get two brothers. Here are two Jeffs. Pick one. This is how
    you make the meaning, you take two things and try to define the space
    between them. Jeff or Jeff? Who do you want to be? You just wanted
    to play in your own backyard, but you don't know where your own yard
    is, exactly. You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one
    safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.
    You have not made that place yet. You are here. You are here. You're
    still right here.

    19
    Here are your names and here is the list and here are the things you left
    behind: The mark on the floor from pushing your chair back, your un-
    derwear, one half brick of cheese, the kind I don't like, wrapped up, and
    poorly, and abandoned on the second shelf next to the poppyseed dress-
    ing, which is also yours. Here's the champagne on the floor, and here
    are your house keys, and here are the curtains that your cat peed on.
    And here is your cat, who keeps eating grass and vomiting in the hall-
    way. Here is the list with all of your names, Jeff. They're not the same
    name, Jeff. They're not the same at all.

    20
    There are two twins on motorbikes but they are not on motorbikes,
    they're in a garden where the flowers are as big as thumbs. Imagine you
    are in a field of daisies. What are you doing in a field of daisies? Get up!
    Let's say you're not in the field anymore. Let's say they're not brothers
    anymore. That's right, they're not brothers, they're just one guy, and
    he knows you, and he's talking to you, but you're in pain and you can-
    not understand him. What are you still doing in this field? Get out of
    the field! You should be in the hotel room! You should, at least, be try-
    ing to get back into the hotel room. Ah! Now the field is empty.

    21
    Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don't make a noise,
    don't leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will
    come back from the dead for you. This could be a city. This could be a
    graveyard. This could be the basket of a big balloon. Leave the