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Into the Light

by Patrick Granger
Chapter 2
I don’t remember going there.
That’s the part that keeps insisting.

People keep asking about the lights,
the neon leaking into the street,
the place where I supposedly stayed too long.
I tell them I drove past.
I tell them I didn’t stop.
Both feel true until I say them aloud.

The photo is still in my wallet.
I know that much.
The edges are worn the way they only get
when something is taken out
and put back
again and again
for no practical reason.
I don’t remember showing it to anyone.
I remember their faces anyway.

I never sat in the back booth.
I never listened for applause
that wasn’t there.
If I did, it meant nothing.
Just a place to breathe
before the road closed its mouth.

The Starduster hasn’t been plugged in lately.
I’m sure of that.
The cord stays coiled.
The receiver stays quiet.
If it hummed, it was only static.
If a voice came through,
it wasn’t meant for me.

I don’t remember thinking of Helena that way.
On a stage.
Under lights.
Like something we finished together.
That memory feels edited.
Like a song remembered wrong
but defended anyway.

Maybe I stopped somewhere.
Maybe I didn’t.
The night rearranges itself
when I try to hold it still.
What matters is I kept driving.
What matters is I didn’t look back.

If there was a dead end,
I don’t recall standing in it.
If I stayed longer than I should have,
it left no mark worth naming.

That’s what I tell myself.
That’s what holds
until it doesn’t.