| Away |
| I could smell her. She smelled of lavender and roses, or maybe of lilac. I couldn�t totally discern the sent that she wore, but it smelt good. Her short hair was wavy and it flowed to encase her face in a golden waterfall. Her defiant brown eyes glittered like rusty steel, and she smiled. I handed her a cigarette. She stood up and turned to get the lighter out of her pocket. As she turned the soft material of her gray tee-shirt pulled tightly between her small firm breast, and accentuated them. I closed my eyes. I heard the flint strike, and inhaled as she lit my cigarette and then her own. I opened my eyes. She looked beautiful tonight. She seemed to have always looked beautiful to me. I looked out the window. The dirty panes of glass were streaked with angel tears. The street held a glossy sheen, like tear streaked cheeks. These things always made me sad. She leaned on my arm, and pulled me towards her. Her nose poked me in the cheek, and I could feel the dampness of her moist red lips close to my ears. I put my cigarette out in the ashtray as she whispered in my ear. I couldn�t understand what she said, but I know what she wanted. I reached into my pocket and removed two more cigarettes. I smiled and offered her the cigarette. She accepted it, and once again lit both of our cigarettes. I inhaled, and she inhaled also. I exhaled. The bartender finally brought our drinks. She smiled and accepted her drink from him. He smiled back at her. I paid the man and took my drink. I was glad that he left. I inhaled, and took a sip of my whiskey on the rocks. The whiskey burned a smooth path down my throat like a fine placebo for my loneliness. I exhaled, and she laughed. I inhaled again. She grabbed my arm again, and I tried to stand to let her pass. I couldn�t move. She slipped across my lap. I wanted her more then. I drew off of the cigarette, sipped on my whiskey, and exhaled. She passed me and danced across the room. I looked down into my drink. I tried to focus on one thing. A tendril of smoke rose up from the ashtray. It climbed into the air, past my eyes, and slowly dissipated into the rest of the smoke in the room, to create a mist that drugged everyone. I looked around at all of the faces. All of the alcohol softened faces smiled back at me. They all smiled with a silent consensus. Everything is happy, they said to me. They all asked me why I felt this strong desire. They all asked why I couldn�t fall into the stupor that they resided in for a while. I turned away from these silent, smiling faces; each with another bitter accusation for me. I inhaled, and exhaled. I silently hung my head and sighed. I stood and she danced back by me. I looked from my drunken eyes to hers. Our souls melted together, clashed, and then pulled apart. She put her head on the table, and I put my arm around her neck. She lifted her head up, and our eyes met again. I blinked. I blinked for the eternity that only a moment can encompass. Things spun around inside of my eyelids, and then stabilized. I saw her without opening my eyes. I sighed and opened my eyes, ending the moment, ending the eternity. Everything was still there. She was still there. I wish she had left. I closed my eyes, and gulped the last of my drink, and stood to go and buy myself another drink. She pulled me close and whispered that she wanted another drink. I walked away, up to the bar. I ordered the same two drinks, speaking to the bartender in a quiet voice. I looked over to her. She smiled, and I turned my head from her, and the realization of my desire. I looked down at the smooth bar top, and the bartender set the two drinks down. I handed him the money; he handed me change. I turned and walked away. I turned back to the accusing smiles around the table. The leering drunken smiles that surrounded the beauty. I looked at her, and for a moment, her smile became a mocking leer also. I closed my eyes and finished my walk. I returned to my seat. I handed her the drink, and set mine on the table in front of my seat. She grabbed my left hand, and she squeezed it tightly. I closed my eyes, trying to reject this moment. Trying to push everything from my mind, my feelings, her, anything I have ever wanted, and leave myself with only a blank page. Nothing written, only white and straight blue lines. Only fibers of white nothingness. I can�t. I accept the moment. Black words fill the blank page. I open my eyes, and fall to the accusations. I took a sip of my drink. Flowing black script words fill the blank page. Words like love, hope, want, and fulfill. Then black jarring script scribbles itself across the other words. Words like failure, lonely, hopeless, and empty. I turned the page. I looked into her eyes. The rusting steel glittered defiantly at the words I display in my mind. Even if she could read them she wouldn�t understand the dead language they were written in. She leaned towards me. Hope welled up within. A blank page with small script. hope. I closed my eyes, and leaned in toward her. Waiting for the moment. Waiting for her. hope. I waited. A cool breeze touched my face. A cool floral scented breeze that wrote another word. Failure. I waited. Foolish waiting. Damned waiting. Lonely waiting. I started to wonder. Maybe I could have her tonight. She is drunk, and I am drunk too. Maybe she could be mine. I thought this thought and I realized that she meant more to me than that. I didn�t even know her that well, but I couldn�t let myself use her just because she was drunk. I reached in my pocket and took out the cigarettes. I took one for me out, and she tapped my arm. I gave her the one I took for myself, and then realized it was the last. She smiled, and I smiled back at her. For the first time she let me light the cigarette for her. I heard the flint rip across the wheel, and the flame suck into the tip as she inhaled. She thanked me with a kiss on my smooth, freshly shaven cheek, and then she turned away again. I touched the place where she kissed me. A smooth space that was just the same as the rest of my face, but that place burned like ice. A freezing burn of something I could never have, no matter how drunk I was, or how drunk she was. I felt like the pack of cigarettes that I held in my hand. I was full at the beginning of the night. Full of hope, full of desire, full of lust, full of drink, full of life. But now I was just an empty box, all the contents within taken by a woman and burned away. I was empty now, and all the things that were within me at the beginning of the night were wasted in her, in those glittering rusty steel eyes. I looked again into her eyes. I now saw what was really there. Just a glazed little girl, looking for someone to be with for a night. The same dead language that I had written in my mind, just different words. I looked at the words, and realized that the child didn�t want me. I read the words and saw that I was being used. I was a toy for the night, to get her cigarettes and her drinks. I was being used, like I wanted to use her. I was playing the game just like it was meant to be played, but now that I knew the rules, it was time for me to quit. I had to get out with what I had, because she would take it all away. I looked around at the empty tables, all with turned over ash trays on top. Then I looked at my own ash tray full of our burned out cigarettes and a graveyard of wispy ash souls. I blew into the ash tray, and the wispy souls danced over the walls and out into the lively world with so many empty and dead people were sitting in tonight. The ashes fell into the rings of liquid on the table from the ghost glasses that were long gone and died a second death. I stood. I turned my back to her. I walked away. Away from my desire, my hope, my failure, away from the possibility of fulfillment. I walked towards the black door, towards the empty rainy streets. I walked away. Away from what I wanted, to something that I knew I had. 03/23/2001 03:12:53 AM |