(no subject)
I was stupid today and went searching for the sight of her. I found her, wrapped in the arms of another. They were dressed as a family. It was a disfunctional image - a joke centered around the Halloween season... but a family nonetheless. It made me miss that unity with her. It made me want to joke with her again. To dress up and become two different people. Two people who could sit at the same table, smile, laugh, and be in love again. Like it used to be. I couldn't shake the feeling. So I wrote. And I wrote and wrote and wrote. I missed my classes and didn't eat for hours. I just wrote. I fucking miss her. I don't want her happy with anyone else. I want to be the selfish one this time.
One
It's that time of year again. The sunlight is eclipsed by the night - efficient and early. Front lawns are blanketed by embittered frost and the ground seems unprepared. It stiffens and recoils from the icy, unwelcome contact. And then comes that scent; that nostalgic aroma that fills the atmosphere and foreshadows the snowfall that will accompany the hours of darkness that silence the city. It is not a smell that fills the nose or consumes the senses but more of an emptiness, as if it is some kind of byproduct left in the wake of warmth as it abandons the world.
“It’s coming.” The words materialize as a whisper just barely audible above the passing traffic. The speaker paces the sidewalk in front of his apartment, knowing his prediction of the season’s first snow is soon to be proven accurate. As small flurries begin to dance in the glow of the streetlamps, he blows smoke into the air and watches as the fragments of white powder float stealthily in and out of its trail.
The anxious figure, eyes pointed to the sky, is a young man; yet lately the weight of the passing days has made his nineteen years feel like an eternity. His aching body never seems to recover from the thousands of miles he has spent behind the wheel these past few years, nor does his heart cease to feel swollen as if it has sunken deep inside his gut. The chase that has weakened him so much was born on a night much like this one, in a suburban town far removed from the city in which he now resides.
Then too did the snow make its annual debut, covering his back porch and illuminating the yard with light reflected from the moon and the stars. It was there that he saw her - soft and modest. She was sitting on the steps watching winter’s elegant arrival, aiming her eyes to the sky and hugging her knees to her chest. Never had either of them seen beauty in such an isolated form. Upon sensing his presence, she took a swift drag from her cigarette and turned slowly to face him. Her piercing blue eyes glistened in the ghostly twilight, and he lost himself completely. A few hours and a few drinks passed them by and soon they melted away November’s chill, pressed closely together beneath the covers.
Looking back on it now, he can still see the footprints she left in his yard. She took delicate steps as a child would, hesitantly placing one tiny, checkered slip-on in front of the other. The taste of that good night kiss lingers on. Two bodies. The snow. The moon and the stars. The memory of fading taillights and the recognition of beginning something big. But that is all it has become now - a memory. He is back inside his apartment now, escaping the harsh and biting cold and marveling at the absence of any physical trace of her in his life. Once upon a time her scent clung to his clothes, but now it is lost in that bare fragrance of the snow’s debut.
Two
And so he wastes away the last few hours of the evening, distracting himself from his loneliness until he musters enough courage to retire to his bedroom. Lately he must wrestle with his darkest of thoughts for hours just to get himself to sleep. Each night he hopes for a dreamless slumber, so as to avoid drowning beneath the image of her body in his bed - only to resurface in the morning, broken and breathless.
He gets undressed and tosses his wrinkled clothes into an already bloated laundry bag. Nervously, he peers behind the withered sack of dirty garments and sneaks a glance at his most secret possession. Concealed in the corner of his closet: a plain prescription bottle of Percocet and a liter of top-shelf bourbon whiskey. “Enough to make it quick,” he thinks. Each has remained unopened, stashed away in case the sadness gets far too hard for him to bear.
“Not tonight,” he decides as he glances at a group photograph that hangs from the wall. It paints a scene from the summer, all his closet friends behind a picnic table littered with bottles of liquor, empty cups, and packs of cigarettes. It was taken just before his world was ripped apart - the girl on his arm now lying in the bed of another and his closest of companions scattered across this vast country. In those days, music danced in the air and the backyard smelled of Nicotine and Citronella candles. Of stale beer and wet pavement. Of cheap liquor and bonfire smoke. It was a crowded smell that seized the senses and left nothing to be missed. It was anything but the dry, vacant stench of the snowy air now creeping through the cracks of his window.
He shuts the light and loses himself in the darkness. He slips beneath the sheets, still stiff with novelty, and falls victim to his own mind. Insomnia struggles to keep him from unconsciousness, but all he wants to do is drift away. First he fights, then he hopes, but he never prays. He has put enough trust into others to last him a lifetime, and in these uncertain, trying times one thing has always remained constant: they always betray him. So as the east coast shuts its eyes until the morning hours, he is on his own to toss and turn, to miss and mourn, to gasp and grieve, to relive and resign.
One
It's that time of year again. The sunlight is eclipsed by the night - efficient and early. Front lawns are blanketed by embittered frost and the ground seems unprepared. It stiffens and recoils from the icy, unwelcome contact. And then comes that scent; that nostalgic aroma that fills the atmosphere and foreshadows the snowfall that will accompany the hours of darkness that silence the city. It is not a smell that fills the nose or consumes the senses but more of an emptiness, as if it is some kind of byproduct left in the wake of warmth as it abandons the world.
“It’s coming.” The words materialize as a whisper just barely audible above the passing traffic. The speaker paces the sidewalk in front of his apartment, knowing his prediction of the season’s first snow is soon to be proven accurate. As small flurries begin to dance in the glow of the streetlamps, he blows smoke into the air and watches as the fragments of white powder float stealthily in and out of its trail.
The anxious figure, eyes pointed to the sky, is a young man; yet lately the weight of the passing days has made his nineteen years feel like an eternity. His aching body never seems to recover from the thousands of miles he has spent behind the wheel these past few years, nor does his heart cease to feel swollen as if it has sunken deep inside his gut. The chase that has weakened him so much was born on a night much like this one, in a suburban town far removed from the city in which he now resides.
Then too did the snow make its annual debut, covering his back porch and illuminating the yard with light reflected from the moon and the stars. It was there that he saw her - soft and modest. She was sitting on the steps watching winter’s elegant arrival, aiming her eyes to the sky and hugging her knees to her chest. Never had either of them seen beauty in such an isolated form. Upon sensing his presence, she took a swift drag from her cigarette and turned slowly to face him. Her piercing blue eyes glistened in the ghostly twilight, and he lost himself completely. A few hours and a few drinks passed them by and soon they melted away November’s chill, pressed closely together beneath the covers.
Looking back on it now, he can still see the footprints she left in his yard. She took delicate steps as a child would, hesitantly placing one tiny, checkered slip-on in front of the other. The taste of that good night kiss lingers on. Two bodies. The snow. The moon and the stars. The memory of fading taillights and the recognition of beginning something big. But that is all it has become now - a memory. He is back inside his apartment now, escaping the harsh and biting cold and marveling at the absence of any physical trace of her in his life. Once upon a time her scent clung to his clothes, but now it is lost in that bare fragrance of the snow’s debut.
Two
And so he wastes away the last few hours of the evening, distracting himself from his loneliness until he musters enough courage to retire to his bedroom. Lately he must wrestle with his darkest of thoughts for hours just to get himself to sleep. Each night he hopes for a dreamless slumber, so as to avoid drowning beneath the image of her body in his bed - only to resurface in the morning, broken and breathless.
He gets undressed and tosses his wrinkled clothes into an already bloated laundry bag. Nervously, he peers behind the withered sack of dirty garments and sneaks a glance at his most secret possession. Concealed in the corner of his closet: a plain prescription bottle of Percocet and a liter of top-shelf bourbon whiskey. “Enough to make it quick,” he thinks. Each has remained unopened, stashed away in case the sadness gets far too hard for him to bear.
“Not tonight,” he decides as he glances at a group photograph that hangs from the wall. It paints a scene from the summer, all his closet friends behind a picnic table littered with bottles of liquor, empty cups, and packs of cigarettes. It was taken just before his world was ripped apart - the girl on his arm now lying in the bed of another and his closest of companions scattered across this vast country. In those days, music danced in the air and the backyard smelled of Nicotine and Citronella candles. Of stale beer and wet pavement. Of cheap liquor and bonfire smoke. It was a crowded smell that seized the senses and left nothing to be missed. It was anything but the dry, vacant stench of the snowy air now creeping through the cracks of his window.
He shuts the light and loses himself in the darkness. He slips beneath the sheets, still stiff with novelty, and falls victim to his own mind. Insomnia struggles to keep him from unconsciousness, but all he wants to do is drift away. First he fights, then he hopes, but he never prays. He has put enough trust into others to last him a lifetime, and in these uncertain, trying times one thing has always remained constant: they always betray him. So as the east coast shuts its eyes until the morning hours, he is on his own to toss and turn, to miss and mourn, to gasp and grieve, to relive and resign.