Her cigarette smelled like the fear inside my chest
The moonlight was bright, but the moon was low and as we walked along the city blocks the buildings cast the deepest black shadows, so dark our eyes took precious seconds to re-adjust after passing each damp, eerie alley way. The closest voices were but mere echoes and I felt more safe with him than I had in my parents bed, candles lit, during a mid-summer blackout when I was a child.
My legs got heavy and my effortless gliding pace skid to a dead stop. Time froze. I swear I saw the music notes tearing out through her lips and crashing into the inivsible barrier in front of my face, shattering to pieces and cutting my legs as they stabbed in my feet. Why? Her mesmerizing hummmmm crashed into me, cut me to pieces, and made me bleed. I had to meet her. As I levitated toward her I felt nothing but a magnetic pull, and those musical shards released from my flesh, and reassembled as they resonated up toward like sky like smoke. She was glowing. Her frizzy, nappy hair emit her charcoal aura surrounding her pale green face.
She didn't see me as I hover in front of her. As I knelt down to look into her eyes, I regained all my senses. The smoke from the cigarette in her hand clouded between our faces. She noticed me suddenly, I surprized her, but only for a moment and she took another drag without missing a single note. She pulled me on to her and hugged me tight, wrapping my hair around her hand. She held me and hummed and then let me go, but I didn't back away. I gazed into her eyes and waited til she had finished her melody and I took the seat beside her, covering my bare shoulders with her dirty and stiff wool blanket. She lay her head against me, and her hum gave me goosebumps and warmed my body so warm that I streched my legs in front of me into the street. I dipped my toes in the puddle at my feet to the beat of her song and switched positions with the pattern of the street light that hung above our heads.
Nothing in the bustling city but we two, until I heard a group of young punks passing by saying to each other things like "don't go that way" "those bums will beg you for money". One hollered "Get a job" another "Get the fuck off our streets". I glared at them out of the corner of my eye, but she didn't flinch. The expression on her face was more pleasant than ever as she entered the chorus of a hymn le chanteuse. I had heard it before but I didn't want to hum along and ruin the aria with my monotone. The buildings around us, the streets, the cars, the people that appeared before us; each of her song transformed us as the decades past became the decades present. And each time she looked different, everything but her eyes, and her pitch that never faltered; some things can never change.
She ended another song and we sat in silence for what would typically have been an uncomfortable period... then she spoke her first word to me. "You.." she said. I stopped her. I felt afraid that anything she had to say would ruin how I felt about her; that she was the most beautiful living thing I had ever encountered in over 23 years on earth. And I didn't want our evening to end, until I realized if I didn't listen, I would never know her story; I would always wonder. I pulled my finger away from her lips and was bracing myself for what she might say... the slow motion of our time together fast forward as her cadenza, the one that had drawn me to her, recapped behind my paniced sweaty brow.
I didn't want to know, I didn't need to know, and before she could open them again.... I kissed her lips to keep them shut. She was beautiful and I couldn't help myself. I opened my eyes but hers were shut. I didn't know what she was thinking any longer, I didn't want to hear anything more. Her voice was now mine. I would never forget those songs she hummed and the way she made me feel. And who she was... I will write my own stories to the melodies I would forever keep.
I fixed my hair, stood up, brushed the dirt off of my legs, and cleared my throat as I backed away from her. She didn't watch me leave. I joined hands with my date and we continued on. I think he knew something that I didn't. He stopped me and looked at me and began to speak. "She.." he said. I did not hear another word as her voice in my head was louder than his voice inches away from my ear. As the night cooled, the frost clung to the street and the trees above us, he froze as still as the night was... so he didn't see as I walked on without him, my feet keeping pace with her final requiem.
My legs got heavy and my effortless gliding pace skid to a dead stop. Time froze. I swear I saw the music notes tearing out through her lips and crashing into the inivsible barrier in front of my face, shattering to pieces and cutting my legs as they stabbed in my feet. Why? Her mesmerizing hummmmm crashed into me, cut me to pieces, and made me bleed. I had to meet her. As I levitated toward her I felt nothing but a magnetic pull, and those musical shards released from my flesh, and reassembled as they resonated up toward like sky like smoke. She was glowing. Her frizzy, nappy hair emit her charcoal aura surrounding her pale green face.
She didn't see me as I hover in front of her. As I knelt down to look into her eyes, I regained all my senses. The smoke from the cigarette in her hand clouded between our faces. She noticed me suddenly, I surprized her, but only for a moment and she took another drag without missing a single note. She pulled me on to her and hugged me tight, wrapping my hair around her hand. She held me and hummed and then let me go, but I didn't back away. I gazed into her eyes and waited til she had finished her melody and I took the seat beside her, covering my bare shoulders with her dirty and stiff wool blanket. She lay her head against me, and her hum gave me goosebumps and warmed my body so warm that I streched my legs in front of me into the street. I dipped my toes in the puddle at my feet to the beat of her song and switched positions with the pattern of the street light that hung above our heads.
Nothing in the bustling city but we two, until I heard a group of young punks passing by saying to each other things like "don't go that way" "those bums will beg you for money". One hollered "Get a job" another "Get the fuck off our streets". I glared at them out of the corner of my eye, but she didn't flinch. The expression on her face was more pleasant than ever as she entered the chorus of a hymn le chanteuse. I had heard it before but I didn't want to hum along and ruin the aria with my monotone. The buildings around us, the streets, the cars, the people that appeared before us; each of her song transformed us as the decades past became the decades present. And each time she looked different, everything but her eyes, and her pitch that never faltered; some things can never change.
She ended another song and we sat in silence for what would typically have been an uncomfortable period... then she spoke her first word to me. "You.." she said. I stopped her. I felt afraid that anything she had to say would ruin how I felt about her; that she was the most beautiful living thing I had ever encountered in over 23 years on earth. And I didn't want our evening to end, until I realized if I didn't listen, I would never know her story; I would always wonder. I pulled my finger away from her lips and was bracing myself for what she might say... the slow motion of our time together fast forward as her cadenza, the one that had drawn me to her, recapped behind my paniced sweaty brow.
I didn't want to know, I didn't need to know, and before she could open them again.... I kissed her lips to keep them shut. She was beautiful and I couldn't help myself. I opened my eyes but hers were shut. I didn't know what she was thinking any longer, I didn't want to hear anything more. Her voice was now mine. I would never forget those songs she hummed and the way she made me feel. And who she was... I will write my own stories to the melodies I would forever keep.
I fixed my hair, stood up, brushed the dirt off of my legs, and cleared my throat as I backed away from her. She didn't watch me leave. I joined hands with my date and we continued on. I think he knew something that I didn't. He stopped me and looked at me and began to speak. "She.." he said. I did not hear another word as her voice in my head was louder than his voice inches away from my ear. As the night cooled, the frost clung to the street and the trees above us, he froze as still as the night was... so he didn't see as I walked on without him, my feet keeping pace with her final requiem.