Brecon Dobbie
Driving Directionless
It happens like that sometimes, stranded in the carpark in Mt Eden
Village, and your car battery is dead because you couldn’t sit
with the silence. The rain has been sweeping in from the horizon
all day, in and out, in and out, and you’re so much younger
than you thought you were. Nothing has been constant, lately, but
things must come to an end. I thought I knew that, I really thought
I did. And Circus Circus is so warm. The cheesecake sweet, and
we talk like we’re seventy. I went to a sushi train for lunch, plates
travelling around a circuit. The jumpsuit I bought was expensive,
but money is money. It was like trying on my own skin. There,
I say to my reflection, there you are. And as we approach the red
light, I don’t think about placing my foot gently on the brake. I
don’t think about switching lanes, or how my hands automatically
flip off the indicator after a turn. Instead, I think about tomorrow
and the colour of your eyes and the rising inside me. The words
stuck, gathering at the heart. How do you translate a feeling? How
do you wash yourself clean? I want to be wanted. I want to see where
we are all going to land at the end of all this. In the passenger seat, you
listen patiently. A reminder that you are not the enemy. I don’t know
who is. The sunset is so different every day. A cloud rears up in front
of my windscreen like a tidal wave, puffy, and peach-coloured, and
astounding. I want to remember, want to keep it all with me. Time
is unsteady. Today, is today and you finally noticed.
What It Looks Like
I thought it was like this for everyone: crying at
the end of Marriage Story, throwing cabbages
around like weights, humming Hans Zimmer, guess
the character in my head, Mum trying not to fall
asleep at the wheel, crowded around the kitchen
counter, you telling me look how far we’ve come and
how far we can go, a melted retainer, lying next to you
again and again, Gilmore Girls and chow fan in the
afternoon, collapsed in laughter, going around
the whole roundabout, breaking down on the living
room floor, the good-but-not-the-best wall, folding bao
dough at Por Por’s, we sit in the rain at Red Beach,
playing scum in the summer, Fleetwood Mac floats
through the garage, I get emotional at a sloth hot
water bottle, we quote St Trinian’s and it’s always
funny, I think you’d like this song, Brecon, the sound
echoing off the tiles at midnight, travelling home with
our fears in the backseat, we walked to school in a row.
Loud music blares out from a random car radio: Mum
is still typing, the curry is burning Mikey’s throat, Nick
is out for a ride, Marie is at the piano and I am full of
thoughts like, wow, here we all are: never deciding not
to love one another, never thinking there was any other
option but this.
Brecon Dobbie recently graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA in English and Psychology. She is currently writing as much as possible and trying to navigate her place in the world. Some of her work has appeared in Minarets Journal, Love in the Time of COVID Chronicle and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021.