Red Mitsubishi Lancer
My favourite place in the world is inside
your Red Mitsubishi Lancer
when we drive around the suburbs fist-pumping, shout-singing
Cher. Once, you drove me all the way over the Harbour Bridge
just so I could buy a second-hand fridge.
It was early autumn in Sydney and the orange foliage had started to line the gutters
I had just had my heart broken and needed to move house.
We strapped the fridge to the hood of the car.
I yelled, ‘We’re strong independent feminists!’
just as the fridge skidded off the roof in a terrible crash
and you rolled your eyes like—I told you we needed to ask men for help!
Another time, after you watched me at a poetry reading
we hopped in the Lancer and you offered to take me out to dinner.
That night we sat in the McDonald’s parking lot until 3 a.m., eating and talking.
We rolled down the windows and the crisp night air stung our faces.
And you took my hand and told me that you were,
for not even the first time in our friendship, proud of me.
I remember sitting there in the car, our bodies aglow
with the yellow and red neon of the McDonald’s sign
feeling like—I had somehow made it.
I didn’t know it then but think I have always been moving toward
that moment in the car park.
Before we met, I was always trying to find a friendship like this, always hustling
to prove I was worthy of it. Only to discover that night
in the ease of the flow between us
in the way you turned toward me with such profound instinct
that love (real love) doesn’t need to be hard won.
I think when I look back on my life what I will really remember
is not what I did or achieved, or even what I wrote,
but who I was with and how it felt to have my loneliness punctured
by these small moments of intimacy.
Whatever happens in our friendship next
I want you to know
I will always remember what it felt like
to be young and to be driving these Sydney streets
as the night sky grew darker and darker
and the warmth in my chest
spread further, like hot liquid, through my limbs.
I will always remember what it felt like
to sit in the Red Mitsubishi Lancer next to you
with the seats leaned back
the radio on quietly
and the engine cut
just so we could hang out in that car
a little bit longer
