Free Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz

INTO THE DRIFT AND SWAY
    Sometimes it gets dark in here behind these eyes I feel like the physical equivalent of a scream. The highway at night in the headlights of this speeding car speeding is the only motion that lets the heart unravel and in the wind of the road the two story framed houses appear one after the other like some cinematic stage set, houses on both sides of my face unravelling towards me and the trees casting shadows like fallen x-rays into the sides of the white clapboard and occasionally some yard dog hooting a silent fear noise it’s lost in the rush of everything; and once before when I felt this way I screamed loud and long and hated the sound of my own voice and so haven’t ever tried it again. I hate highways but love speeding and I can only think of men’s bodies and the drift and sway of my own if sex was a dance I’d do a crawl for that body I saw this afternoon the guy stepping out from the cab of his truck in the parking lot of the bus stop he looked kinda canadian and in a sexy collared shirt and tight faded jeans and thick leather belt and boots and a crease in the front of his pants that let his dick rest lazy and calm and forearms I’d want under my tongue and after the turn on the bridge when I’d swung back going north stopped at a rest stop and a truck pulled in I walked past it a little later and a ruby red light flicked on and a silhouette of a man in worker’s pants stepped out swinging from the bar next to the outside rear view mirror and walked past me in a blaze of car lights and entered the bathroom. I walked around for a while he never came back out finally I went in and bent slightly saw his legs beneath the frame of one of the stalls and took the one next to him pulled down my pants and sat on the cold toilet and looked down to my side and there was a puddle of water between the two stalls under the dividing panel and it reflected light from the overhead ceiling fixture and through its transparency was the squared outline of gray floor tiles and as I looked at it I realized that I could see the overhead-lit features of this truck driver and the pale wash of his eyes and jaw line and cheek bones and following the illuminated shoulders in the surface of the puddle down his arms only one was illuminated and part of his chest pressing through the flimsy t-shirt and down his forearms and to his wrists and the puddle moved a bit breaking the image into wavy lines and pieces of light and when his face came back in focus and the water was still I held my breath so as not to disturb it I looked in the vicinity of his hands two hands lit from various angles pieces of fingers with cold white lights and parts of wrists and all of it wrapped around a silhouette of a hard dick which he waved back and forth in the reflection his image for a moment looked like it was floating upside down beneath the surface of the floor and I was therefore floating right side up and from his vantage point I was floating upside down and he right side up and up in the cab of his rig he pulled off his pants saying don’t worry about the
    cops they always check
    the cars first and by
    flashing their flashlights
    through each one we got
    plenty of time just to enjoy
    it go ahead enjoy yourself
    and putting his big hand
    around the back of my
    neck and pressing gently
    till my face could make
    out the outline of his
    moving dick I could see
    the dim hairs covering his
    balls go ahead use your
    tongue a lot and less teeth
    that’s it more tongue and
    less teeth yeah where
    I come from there’s three
    brothers who come over
    my place when they can get
    away they come over for
    the night and they love it go
    ahead that’s right enjoy
    it enjoy yourself. His fingers and face scattered into shards of light*

MEMORIES THAT SMELL LIKE GASOLINE
    It’s that face. I knew I’d seen it before. I was standing in the lobby of a movie theater surrounded by crowds of people waiting to