FICTION – FREEWRITE

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The things I know about love could be scribbled on a matchbook’s blank side with room left for a bad limerick. Truth is, the original matchstick instructions—strike here, light fuse, watch things burn—hold more practical wisdom. Over years of singed fingers and smoldered hopes, I’ve gathered scraps of survival tactics. Never trust words spoken in dim light or daylight; most folks peddle lies they’ve yet to realize themselves. Study their hands—the way they flutter like trapped moths when spinning tales. Watch for the split-second flicker in their eyes when truth barges in uninvited. But don’t stare too long, or you’ll become the mirror they’re desperate to avoid.

This isn’t some grand philosophy unearthed in a desert monastery. Just rusty tools to patch the hull when the ship’s taking water. Save the “real men don’t cry” bravado for locker rooms—we all drown the ache somehow. A twelve-pack of Bud, a heart-to-heart with Jack Daniel’s, or sobbing into a motel pillow while Springsteen croons about highways on the tinny alarm clock radio. At least tears don’t leave you waking to that look: a woman recoiling under crumpled sheets, eyes wide as a spooked deer’s. She’ll mutter something about quitting gin as she retreats to the bathroom, and you’ll mumble back about swearing off scotch, both knowing neither promise will outlast the coffee brewing in the stained pot.

The real art lies in the exit. You hand her a chipped mug, steam curling like a question mark between you. She sips, eyebrows lifting—not at the bitterness, but at the shock of you still being there. You brace for the verdict: Is the coffee better than the sex? A half-smile. A nod toward the door. No words, just the unspoken script we all memorize by 30. Dignity intact, you slip into the dawn, both already drafting tomorrow’s excuses.

Gypsy—my ‘65 Ford pickup—taught me more about commitment than any human. She’s been my co-conspirator since high school, back when her engine purred and her bench seat fit two (or three, if we got creative). These days, her love language is breaking down at cinematic moments: snowy backroads, midnight escapes from jealous husbands, and that one time outside Tulsa when her transmission gave up just as Margo’s daddy’s headlights crested the hill. The split lip was worth it. Can’t pay child support if you’re always in the rearview, right?

But the road—Christ, the road. It’s a confession booth on wheels. Twenty miles in, the hum of asphalt strips away the bullshit. Past regrets roll by like telephone poles: Lisa’s laugh in ‘08, the stillborn promise to quit smoking, your father’s hands on the steering wheel that last July. By mile 200, you’re raw enough to pull over and let the tears come—not the pretty kind, but the ugly, snot-dripping ones that scald your cheeks. You cry for the man you thought you’d be, for the love letters burned, for the quiet horror of becoming exactly what you mocked at 22. Then you wipe your face on a gas station napkin, buy a lukewarm Dr Pepper and a honeybun, and drive until the road starts making sense again. Or until it doesn’t. Either way, you keep moving.