Ciggarette Butts and Dying Passion

eh ... just a thought that came to me in the middle of the night

 

When I look back on the last time we were truly together; the last time we shared the same oxygen in the cab of your car as you sped down the road, the last time our lips fused together in half lighted passion like the dying embers on the end of your cigarette, the last time I leaned my head against your lily white chest and traced the farmers tan lines on your arms, the last time we uttered the words “I love you” to each other like an over-rehearsed line of a play; I knew. I knew when the last time was really the last time. I knew what you were going to say even before you said it yourself; in fact I truly believe that I knew all along that the entirety of the time we knew each other and spent time together, was all leading up to the last time. I can’t help but say that I knew that our ending was near at the very beginning. You and I were always so different from each other. If we were both characters in a book I would have had one of us killing the other out of sheer jealousy or insanity. Nevertheless our story was what it was and unfortunately it was always somewhat leaning toward tragic love. What happened to you and I is the exact stuff I always try to avoid engaging in.  

 

The intellectual, somewhat self conscious, nervous girl walks into the classroom avoiding all eye contact and manages to slide into the chair that is far enough away from the rest of the class and the professor yet close enough to the door for a speedy exit. You would never take a second look at her anytime before now, yet for some reason this girl caught your eye. Maybe it was the way her long red hair frames her creamy white face with her Monroe and septum piercing , or maybe it is those glasses that scream “I could be a porn star or an artist but you will never know,” it could possibly be that vintage artist outfit she has on with her books tucked into a burlap patchwork looking purse that makes her look so fun and outgoing, or perhaps it’s the way she let her eyes float up for a brief moment to look at you and you could of sworn that something was sent from her eyes to yours. Whatever the case may be you can’t possibly turn around to look at her without being obvious so you swallow down the sudden interest in the mysterious red head that is seated at the back of the room. The teacher puts up your first assignment of the year, write a poem about you that will sum up who you are for the rest of the class. You sit there with the blank piece of paper in front of you and the pen in your hand. Sum you up? All you can think about is mystery girl and where you parked your car as you fumble in your pocket looking for your keys. You zone out thinking about what you can do to make your car faster and before you know it people are reading their poems out loud, in fact you are next. You feel like an idiot and look at the board, scrawling something down about green beans and race cars and stand up facing the front of the class. “Uh……. Yeah …… I am white, I believe in reincarnation, I like to drive my car, I hate beans, and I am awesome in the sack.” The class is divided by rooting guys and disgusted girls, you wince, afraid to see the response of mystery girl, but you have to know, so you turn around as you sit, only to see four people back, the top of her head as she is bent over her paper, her pen rapidly scrawling down words, completely oblivious to what you just said. You turn back around to face a not so happy professor and listen to the physicist tell about evolution and fear of tripping in public, relieved that she didn’t hear you. Two more people droll on about their boring lives and then some freak girl who rather resembles a shrunken head or even a turtle talks about how she likes Nerf wars, Japanese food, dead things, anime, and getting naked with friends, leaving you feeling a bit disturbed and frightened that somehow you will get paired up with this chick in some group project. Yet, you aren’t too concerned; you are waiting for the last person’s poem, the one that you are most eager to hear. Now is your chance to turn around and look. She is beautiful, in an eccentric, creative, hippy way and she is standing pigeon toed with her eyes glued to her paper, and she nervously pushed a lock of hair behind her ear only to have it fall back in front of her face again. She hates speaking in front of public you can tell, it makes her so uncomfortable. The professor tells her to go ahead and as if empowered by some unseen force, the girl transforms and raises her head, she stands straighter, and the red pigment that was flooding her face earlier seems to have been flushed away. Still pigeon toed she clears her throat once and then unlocks the gates that held her so silent. Her voice is like a song, it vexes you, you feel enchanted as she reads over the well formulated poem. “To sum up who I am in a measly poem would be no mere peccadillo. I would rather be left to the eye of the beholder then befall such a fate as summarizing a human being in the limitations of verse. Does not even the best of writers struggle with breathing life into a character? Shall you even try to accomplish what only God can do? Even a biography is a superficial insight to the smallest part of one’s life. Are the social security number, ethnicity, gender, deeds and events of one’s life truly a picture of who they are? Be alive doesn’t automatically tell the tale of your life, and furthermore life should not measured by living but rather the soul, therefore making it nearly impossible to capture the true essence of someone. Fore do we truly know ourselves? Neigh I shall not try and use mere adjectives and nouns to encompass the quintessence of who I am. If you wish to know me then you by every right as a capable human being of communication and thought process may approach me and try to understand a part of who I am, that is, what I choose to show you. Therefore, for now I am just another student in this class who sits at the back with the cat eye glasses, piercings, vintage clothing, and red hair.” You and the entire class are speechless as the professor raves how thought provoking her poem was and how she clearly knows how to capture the mind. You only can look at her once more and turn back around facing forward. You are hooked. The professor dismisses the class and before you even have a chance to turn back around to talk to Red, which you have just decided to call her because you didn’t catch a name anywhere in that poem, she has whizzed by you and is already out of the door. Who is she?

 

Yeah, you think that I didn’t catch the way you looked at me? Or the way you looked for me after class with the expectant look in your eyes. You think I didn’t know how to play the game of mystery. And that look that you saw in my eyes was definitely “a look.” Oh and by the way I did hear that poem about yourself, a horrible yet accurate description of who you are. Yeah I knew the ending before it even began, yet I let it begin because I saw you. Wispy sandy colored hair relaxed against your scalp perfectly flipping out on the sides like a still frame of a famous actor in the wind or an advertisement for a hair product, your bangs sloping down in front of your bright blue eyes. Those eyes! Oh those blue eyes that I always wished I could loose myself in, a masterpiece onto themselves! That golden ring around your pupil that shot out like a starburst or tongues of golden flame onto the purest sapphire stone, not even God himself could replicate such beauty. Your eyes took my breath away every time I looked into them, eyes that were truly the perfect example of a window to the soul, they change tint with your mood, and with the rawest emotions, the gold in your eyes becomes animated as if it were liquid being poured into crystal blue water. I almost believe that if you could extract that gold that you hold prisoner in your eyes it would shine brighter and burn hotter than any substance known to man. Not even the highest quality gold or platinum could ever thrill me more than your eyes. I don’t believe I will ever find anything more pure than what I beheld there in those orbs. Then there was your lips, formed perfectly by the hands of the gods into the perfect smile and the cutest dimples, your lip ring only accentuating your intoxicating smirk, oh yes, I noticed you. I noticed you even more when you kissed me for the first time when all the emotion that could ever be encompassed in the eyes shined and all the passion a kiss could ever hold was transfused when your perfect mouth fit like a missing puzzle piece with my longing lustful lips and your passion coursed through my body. You were the only man I can ever say made my head spin when I kissed you. I know how this entire description of you sounds so very cliché, but what else can I do but describe what my eyes beheld and my body lusted over. 

 

Yet, as I have said before, I knew the end was coming and the passion that you held for the mysterious “Red,” was lost with the first time I let you become one with me. Or more the first time you decided you were tired of the mysterious act of elusiveness. It had always been so obvious to me that perhaps behind the emotion that you flaunted in your eyes, there may have been an ulterior motive or hidden want, but all I wanted was for you to love me. Perhaps this is what love is? So I gave in to the please and the kisses that followed the begging. The first time you and I entwined in the embrace that so many lovers have engaged in the past, I knew I lost the purity of our love. It is just as a child wishes for a toy for so long that when they get it and play with it, the anticipation is gone, the toy doesn’t look all that great now, and the newer model in the window looks better. So I slowly watched the eyes that I dream about turn faint and uninterested, the flash of excitement only when the long legged, skinny, black haired girl thought she was candidly winking or waving at you in the hallway, as I loosely held your hand, just knowing that the day would come when our fingers would no longer be entwined.  Yet, I knew this all along, so I just let you fall away just as the autumn leaves slowly change color and float to the ground below, so I watched my lover go. And though I knew it would hurt when you left for the better version of the fascinating girl, I didn’t know that your eyes would haunt me forever or that I would always remember the last cigarette we smoked together after one last impassioned lovers embrace.  

Author's Note

Say what you like .... it is 3:00 in the morning and this is what I produce ... I hope someone reads it ..... I like it at least ...

Reviews

[Eliza Valentine]

I like it!!! Sometimes the best work happens at 3am, I know it does for me :p Good work, keep it up, well done :D