'98 well-used pickup,
A bit of history stained into the upholstery and the faint air of cigarettes lingering in its axes. A few empty tubes of lipstick litter the floor, always reminders.

A couple years ago a dazzling Mercedes hit me, scratching off horizontal lines of rusted red paint. Not enough to total this bastard of a truck, but this vagabond piece of scrap metal wasn’t worth the effort of painting its skin back on. This cube of oxidized steel and shattered glass wasn’t worth saving, never worth fixing.

Sometimes the steering wheel is a little out of sync with its correspondent wheels, but that’s alright, we’re not dead in a ditch yet, we haven’t joined the ghosts of las mariposas and their fight for women and freedom and feminism (they weep for the dead girls out in California, their souls weep with mine as I look over my shoulder for monsters of rape and “help me” and assault and “please, I’ll do anything”)

Please, take a spin on me, take a chance on my twice-replaced radio, just don’t blame me for mistrusting your touch. But my quiet grin is real, my contentedness is safe to believe until it goes too far, God forbid (if there is one of course)

Lie with me, forget the injustice of the pickup trucks shoved into scrap yards, the bodies of girls turned into corpses as they pretend nothing happened, it’s okay, “I was asking for it”

Me, I haven’t dealt with this directly.
I’m a relatively unscathed car parked behind your school, your mosque, your supermarket, too scared to escape my shadow of doubt but knowing that rats are sharing this cemented cellblock with me

And these stories in newspapers are devastating, and even though I have no reason to be frightened, the risk of a punch or a slap or a shot is enough to make me check the rearview mirror and to tell the girls and women that they’re safe for now