first post of the new year and damn it's a cheery one!
That was the last time I saw you. You laid there naked as sin, a half-smoked cigarette limp between your lips. The garish white light from the bathroom washed you out against the rumpled sheets. You opened your mouth only to take a drag. I stood there in the bedroom doorway.
I knew she had been there; her body's imprint still in the sheets; your seed still glistening on your thigh. You didn't care anymore. Not that it mattered anymore. I knew before I even opened the door to our building. The wind still carried the scent of her. Chanel No. 5. It clung to the walls of the stairway. It hung in the air of the bedroom, fucking stale cigarette smoke. I wanted to vomit.
Chanel No. 5. I used to wear that and you used to say how you loved the way I smelled. The bottle ran out a year ago. Six months later I could smell it in our flat. I thought you bought me another bottle. There was no bottle, only the scent hanging about curiously. Chanel No. 5. I hate that perfume.
You took another drag and swallowed the smoke so that your throat would be as black as your heart. My stomach heaved. It took all of me to walk out and close the door. The fresh snow turned a sickly purple: the cheap red wine I down earlier, alone in the dark of shitty cubicles, alone among crumpled papers and coffee stains. Why did it have to be this way? Why did I have to drink cheap red wine in a fake office while you fucked a woman I knew only by smell? Maybe I should have fucked somebody.
But I couldn't have. I stopped feeling a long time ago. I simply functioned. A machine with no off button. Did you stop feeling too? Do you just need a fuck to survive? Men have to fuck; it's genetic. Yeah, genetic. This was not my fault.
That was the last time I saw you. I can't remember if that was five minutes ago or five hours. I'm not throwing up cheap red wine anymore. No, my hair swirls around me like Ophelia's. My hair that I grew out for you. My body is weightless even though the wool coat pulls me further down. My body that I starved for you. I breathe in, the water choking my nostrils, but all I smell is Chanel No. 5.
I knew she had been there; her body's imprint still in the sheets; your seed still glistening on your thigh. You didn't care anymore. Not that it mattered anymore. I knew before I even opened the door to our building. The wind still carried the scent of her. Chanel No. 5. It clung to the walls of the stairway. It hung in the air of the bedroom, fucking stale cigarette smoke. I wanted to vomit.
Chanel No. 5. I used to wear that and you used to say how you loved the way I smelled. The bottle ran out a year ago. Six months later I could smell it in our flat. I thought you bought me another bottle. There was no bottle, only the scent hanging about curiously. Chanel No. 5. I hate that perfume.
You took another drag and swallowed the smoke so that your throat would be as black as your heart. My stomach heaved. It took all of me to walk out and close the door. The fresh snow turned a sickly purple: the cheap red wine I down earlier, alone in the dark of shitty cubicles, alone among crumpled papers and coffee stains. Why did it have to be this way? Why did I have to drink cheap red wine in a fake office while you fucked a woman I knew only by smell? Maybe I should have fucked somebody.
But I couldn't have. I stopped feeling a long time ago. I simply functioned. A machine with no off button. Did you stop feeling too? Do you just need a fuck to survive? Men have to fuck; it's genetic. Yeah, genetic. This was not my fault.
That was the last time I saw you. I can't remember if that was five minutes ago or five hours. I'm not throwing up cheap red wine anymore. No, my hair swirls around me like Ophelia's. My hair that I grew out for you. My body is weightless even though the wool coat pulls me further down. My body that I starved for you. I breathe in, the water choking my nostrils, but all I smell is Chanel No. 5.