{Exclusive Release & Giveaway} Don't Let Me Go by Sarah (@LittleGreyAche)

4/15/2015

A tale of best friends and a black-lit back room.
Alright, Violet, and how it leads to all or nothing.
The burden of escape, and a shape that begs to be traced.
Meeting dark eyes, carrying them for life,
and engraving the way meaning lifts from unmade stars and stripes,
to a place deeper than memory.
What it means to be narrowed in, and how a maniac cuts himself loose.
Shoving control, searching for a denim noose, finding what it takes, and breaking in the right place.

Pride, and a cry that cuts clean through.

Six Sheets, and how a heart fights, and burns, and beats.

Between fading red marks and the world coming apart,
a little past the point of no return is a dirty parking lot,
and everything innocent is a life sentence.

Pure tenderness and preciousness worth all her weight.
A dark and dire strait, and how you keep her safe.

Walking something sticky off your shoes, and What can't we do?

Giving until your hands are empty, and Go.

Just go.

Falling,
and the blinding, beautiful way it makes your only reason to
glow.

Exclusive Excerpt -

In the black-lit bathroom with the door closed, shouts and neo-groove guitar riffs that have only gotten louder as the bar filled up muffle through thin walls. I bring another palmful from the cold tap up to my face and the back of my neck.

It steadies me.

But just for a second.

I shut off the faucet, and water drips from my chin and the hoop in my nose as I turn around and bring my tee shirt up. The cut in my eyebrow stings as I rub over it and dry the rest of my face. I close my eyes to clear my head, but it reels, and I wish the kid would take the opportunity to get out before it gets any worse.

When my friends split, I left my responsibility in her chair so I could pull my shit together.

But I know she's going to be there when I open the door again.

And as hard as I resign everything else inside me, there's this sinking feeling I can't shut down.

My jaw tenses, and I dig my teeth into my bottom lip.

Blinking damp lashes, I run my hands down my face and push my hair back, taking a deep breath in through my nose before opening the door.

I glance only quickly enough to find the lamb still in her chair, just like I knew she would be. She looks up as I look away, and the sinking feeling in my gut pulls from between my shoulders, down through my chest and deeper into my stomach.

Not glancing back at her or the room as I speak, I head toward our exit.

“Come on.”

Outside, nighttime is cloudlessly cool. The open air alleviates some of anxiety's thick oppression, and I heard the kid follow, but she doesn't ask where we're going. She catches up with quick, uneven boot steps as I round the corner from 13th to Hamlin, heading toward the traffic I can see down on 12th. While she could easily turn and run, she keeps herself almost beside me instead.

I rub my eyes and pick up my pace.

12th NE isn't as packed as it could be with the festival just a few miles away, but cars cruise by and businesses' fluorescents light the drunk, poor, and already spring-broken. A bus passes on the opposite side of the street, and I stop in front of Silvestre Cafe.

The air stinks like rotisserie chicken, burnt gas, and black powder.

“Alright,” I say, looking around. “There's Metro stops up and down this block.”

Bass and violent undertones vibrate as a Cadillac with a busted tail light rolls by.

Licking my lips, aware of my surroundings and the weight of conviction that won't hesitate under my buckle, I reach into my back pocket, take out my wallet, and do a quick count.

“I have three hundred bucks.”

A lowrider passes in my peripheral, blaring brass-based beats and loud trumpets.

“Three fifty,” I correct myself, remembering smaller bills in my pocket and feeling dark, scared-open eyes on my hands.

Stressed, restless, and wishing hard she'd just take what I fold in half and hold out to her, and run with it, I look up and past what my boy left me, over her head and toward oncoming traffic.

“What about Rhys?” she asks, still looking at me.

I swallow, watching insects circle blindly in streetlamp light.

“You wouldn't have to go home,” I tell her. “You could go anywhere.”

“I don't know … Can we just …” She trails off and pulls a deep breath.

“Can we wait it out?” she asks, fear still coating her voice. “I mean, what if …”

I blink, looking at the dark daycare center across the intersection, paper bag wrapped bottles in the street, the ’86 Crown Vic parked behind what's mine to deal with. I look anywhere but at her while at the end of the block, another bus turns toward us.

My pulse thumps in my palms. It throbs hard behind my eyes and fast against my ear drums. It's everywhere, stifling breathing and pushing me to do something.

“I thought you were running away,” I say tightly.

“I was … ”

Already too small, her voice breaks, and I can't handle the sound. Sinking in my stomach hardens into an anchor between my lungs while the bus stops a block down, beeping loudly and exhaling exhaust. People get off and onto it while I weigh morals against allegiance, and both of them together against the sound I can't bear, and come up fucked no matter which way I go.

Watching the bus begin to move again, I pocket my wallet as it passes us, and I look down, meeting eyes that are helplessly desperate and waiting for mine.

“Okay,” I say under a quickly-heaving heartbeat.

Visibly swallowing, she blinks, nodding and eager.

Like now, now--

She's ready to run.

About The Author -

yelly. yellowglue. poet half. sun half. ausoleil. squeak. cuppycakes. precious pinks. sarahbear. warren. little grey. and a girl named ben. secret keeper, love's listener -

i drew my heart myself, and my girl loves when i call out for words.

if it's the truth,
it's okay.