birthed on the road to heaven

the one about ketamine, and roads, and my dad's friend sheryl

hope(less) on sundays

Sep 28, 2024

175

`With a Foreword by`
Layla 2.0

There is a smooth, seemingly eternal stretch of road that runs beside my city’s river. Two lanes that are hugged on either side with wise oak trees and a rusty chain link fence. When I was sixteen, my friends and I would park off the road, hop the fence, and do ketamine or smoke pot in the river bed. I had my first kiss on this road. I lost my virginity on this road. When I got a little bit older, I spent hours driving, desperate to find the end of the road. And I never did. I’m almost certain that the road wraps around the entire world, floats on top of the Atlantic Ocean, passes through the Caribbean and South America. I’m almost sure that if I spend the rest of my life driving on the road, I would reach heaven, and all the questions I previously had will ring meaningless in the end.
I lost the love of my life recently. It seems that my internal clock has stopped ticking while everyone else's moves rapidly, like wildfire spreads. It seems that I’m frozen underwater and watching people walk on the ice that hangs over me. It’s the worst, most forlorn emotion I’ve ever felt. Today I was drinking cheap wine in the bathtub at 7AM and thinking about him. I was thinking about the hair on his arms and the bones in his wrist. I was thinking about the green in his eyes and how his heart might look behind his chest, bleeding and beating and blossoming. Then I thought about the road that runs beside the river. And the only thing I could think to do was to get in my car and drive.

`birthed on the road to heaven`

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Well I wasn't born on the road,
I mean we may be poor but we're not heathens, you know,
what would the neighbours think? Or God —
Child of his, splattered from pussy to gravel.
No, no, Mum had a birth plan and everything —
THE ONLY PLAN I EVER HAD
and all for me? My goodness, that's love.

They drove me down it though,
all seven pounds of me,
hospital to home,
made two stops on the way:
THE KIDS GOTTA EAT.
KIDS DON'T EAT, JERRY, NOT DAY OLD ONES.
RIGHT, WELL, then we'll have a number six, medium,
double whopper meal, and a small milkshake for the kid that don’t eat.

...please.

And then to Sheryl's,
Dad's ex from high school,
who sells a bit of heroin on the side.
YOU KNOW SHE'S BEEN DYING TO SEE THE KID 
I DO NOT WANT MY BABY INSIDE THAT HOUSE!
SHE CAN COME OUT TO THE STRE-

Oh wow, my first friend. Hi Sheryl!
What an adventure,
and then home.

I'd take a guess and say
I was probably twenty two pounds
by the time Dad lost the car,
and then his life a couple days after that.
I don't suppose they were connected,
but it meant I didn't drive down the road again
for a while.

Not until my friend Luke learned to drive.
He'd always pick me up
with nothing to do
and petrol to burn and we'd just go and go—
God, I miss those days.
Luke had an even nicer car than Dad's,
Mum told me that herself.
I'd give him a handjob sometimes
for his troubles
and the weed and the petrol,
but he never tried anything funny;
his Dad was the bishop.
That meant they got to live in their house for free,
Mum told me that too.
Luke was nice.

He got engaged a few years back,
moved to Germany
and had a kid.
I bet he loves them both more than me —
and I mean of course he does,
I've seen his fiancée on Facebook
and oh my,
she's like princess pretty,
pinterest pretty.
The baby's pretty weird-looking though,
huge head.

And me, well,
I'm still on the same road,
and I hear it's pretty long,
But I can't say I've ventured much past the three miles
either side of the house.
I don't even know how to drive.
Mum says I wouldn't be any good,
But she said that about me swimming too
and she never remembers that summer
when I was like eight,
and I begged and begged
for her to take me to the seaside,
but it was too expensive, and she had to
borrow some money from Sheryl — same one.
And I was so good,
I was swimming like a fish,
honest to God,
Dad, you should have seen me.

So yeah,
these days I kind of just
look out the window,
And I see the road
I see it, I do,
but man, even that’s difficult.
I don’t dare drive on it—
Who knows where it takes people like us?

Mum once said it leads to Heaven,
And I suppose at times I can believe it—
It’s either that or Germany.
I wish I had someone to hold my hand,
maybe then I'd take the first step.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! firstly, to the incredibly talented
Layla
for this beautifully genius piece, this is more than I could have ever hoped for — all I wish for is to have been able to do your words justice ❤️
Second firstly, to anyone at all that has read this, i love you forever.
I would love to have more people to do something like this with in the future, leeching off of way more talented writers than i am is actually pretty fun :)
be good, see you tomorrow
-Hope on Sundays

Hasse

Sep 28

I gotta try not to be hyperbolic here… but — between the both of you and the entire presentation — you’ve made something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Probably one of the best things I’ve read on Substack.

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