Do you think she remembers me?

The eternal struggle, a haunting tune, the flickering of the thunder and the memories that flow like an untamed river. First attempt at writing online, hope everyone enjoys it, feedback is appreciate

Do you think she remembers me?

By E.Q

 

Have you ever heard of that thing which has no limits, either in the night or in the day? Whether the wind blows from the north or the south, and whether it is cold, or it is warm. That excruciating feeling, we wear like embroidered suits and pointless smiles. That entity that makes us drift through the sky at night when we lay on our beds and takes us above to the clouds, passing by the thunder and the rain as it falls encompassing the ground. An inner turmoil that is all but spent. That endless traumatic notion, an idea that was well beyond me, was the only thing that kept me from touching her, the only thing that could’ve been real. You see, unlike us it is limitless, it is not bound by flesh and blood, it only lingers after we are gone.

And yet it makes me sit away from her, even now I tried to get up as she laid in her bed, resting, facedown far away from me. The breeze invaded the room filling my body with an emptiness, and an aching feeling of remorse. A blue neon light stood opposite to us and it filled with the room with a sort of mysticism, its light pervading in everything around us. The currents carry her perfume to me, intoxicating my very existence. Her exposed back brought certain thoughts to my head I should’ve quickly extinguished, but I never did. Her legs which were quick to incite me revealed only memories and shame. And her heart which I always rejected brought only a yearning for something else. Every fiber of my being was now begging to leave.

I trailed my left hand along the soft carpet, imagining the grass on my fingertips as if I was a little boy, lost in Babylon. And yet I sat there at the edge of the room with a bottle on my side, a long way from paradise as I looked at her in the dark You see it’s hard to get away with it, to be this unkind towards another. For the darkest souls even lose something at the thought of what I do sometimes, and the purest souls yearn for that they will never understand. And sometimes when she wanders and knocks at my door my heartbeat ascends as the night bleeds its wild colors and we join as one, eventually we lose our breath and gasp for death, always we unfold in its wild ecstasy. I've felt that grip of sorrow throughout me for a long time but there is a way to survive, for loneliness appears often but it is a long and treacherous road filled with my mistakes. A long and arduous story which has no end. However, sometimes I feel, that my treatment of her, must not go unpunished.

I averted my tired eyes to the open window, its curtains drawn to the side. The large Neon sign glistened, and its beams entered through the open window suffocating my body with its presence. The bustled city stood illuminated and you could see a small smoke cloud in the distance, rising and on the far side a large valley. Out there the people walked aimlessly following the trails and the golden rivers around them. Here either by the allure of the valleys and the mountains or the journey through the dessert, all their lives separate, their struggles intimate or there for all to see. Each of them with their eyes closed yearning for that which they cannot feel with their eyes open. Yet in the distance nature flourished, there was a large grey cloud and the thunder echoed, the lights it emitted enthralled me. It called to me in ways I could not describe, feeling the allure of its gaudy colors.  “Come to me” it said, filling my hear with old promises.

I heard a muffled sound and turned to see her as she laid on the bed in all her exotic magnificence and I felt the allure to slip into the bed and find a way to be with her just one more time. I felt my fleeting love for her, but my heart was crushed, hard and desolate. Perhaps, I shoulve enjoyed our time together instead of beating myself up. The truth is that these things that happen to us, we understand them, but we refuse to acknowledge that we do and so create these stories, a reality to make us feel better.

Her gaze turned to me, always with a smile. She stood up as quietly as possible and she dressed herself with a large gown.  She moved like a fox, swift and precise towards me and sat on my lap, taking my hand and kissing it. Caressing my face with her soft fingers, and taunting smiles, her eyes looked to me for guidance, wondering what would happen next. And yet below the desire there was disgust for even wild animals have more respect of their prey than I did at that moment.  I went on, staring into her eyes only to see nothing but a hollow soul like my own.

The wind interrupted the silence. I took her hand and kissed it and reached for the glass that was beside me on table taking a small sip and slowly breathing.

“Kiss me” she said, trying to test me.

“You wouldn’t like how I taste right now” I said signaling towards the bottle, still trailing my fingers on the carpet.

“I don’t mind” she replied, leaning towards me, testing me again.

There was another silence, and I felt my heart rising.

“Can we sleep?” I interrupted feeling less like myself and taking another sip of my drink.

“You always act like this” she said in a demanding tone.

“You know I’m tired, I just want to lay down. With you” I replied confidently as I could.

“Right” she said, her voice low, broken and without purpose.

“Don’t start” I said turning my eyes away, trying not to sound too eager to leave.

“Right” she said as she looked outside. The wind howled and the currents moved around her exquisite figure. Her hair laid on her back and she fixed it with her hands hiding her insecurities and her tired eyes. She inhaled and exhaled the same way she did each day. She touched her hair the same way as well and her eyes turned off at the same time. She bit her lip trying to gather her thoughts, perhaps feeling rotten to the core knowing that she would always end up here. Her mouth opened and her lips quivered as she struggled to put her ideas into words I could possibly understand. But how could I understand the struggle that it is to endure my existence. You give blood and flesh, you conceal basic emotions just to keep that person in your live for just one second and for what. She opened her mouth and emptied her thoughts, finally she managed the question I could never ask. “Who are you?” she asked firmly as she dried her lips with her hand and gazed at me with the most beautiful eyes, a gaze that was wasted upon my horrible existence.

There was silence, I took another drink and hesitated to answer. Who am I? I asked myself, I always thought I didn’t know but the truth was that I did. Ultimately it made no use.

“Are you deaf, or broken?” She demanded.

“How do you?-“ I began and looked at her in distress. Did she see right through me?

“Sweetheart” she answered in her low caring voice.

“I�"” started and stumbled, my eyes grew heavier by the minute.

“Please tell me, what is wrong, so I can fix it” said her tremulous voice.

“Nothing!” I said. “Nothing is wrong okay” I said trying to gather my thoughts, but my anger grew with every word.

“We laugh, we have a few drinks, we f**k and then you don’t want to have anything to do with me” she continued. “You know I want you” she ended, her voice growing louder by the second.

“I want you too” I said as I looked at her finally. “Please” I continued but my voice was not as convincing as I thought.  

Silence. She leaned in and we kissed. She stayed there, silent, looking at me and smiling but there was a lot more in her eyes.

“I can’t be your call girl, or something to take the edge away” she said finally.

“Who says you are?”

“Because�"” she started but her lips stumbled as if she hit a wall. She looked outside at the lights and her eyes were lit up, blue from the neon and yet her face was filled with a newfound sense of sorrow or guilt. She closed her eyes and smiled, she even managed a small laugh, but I could feel the tones sadness within it.  “I know what its like” she answered and finally it all became clear.

“What its like?” I answered.

“To be alone, to feel alone-”

“Don’t embarrass yourself” I said stopping her words before she would anger me.

“Well�"” I answered feeling disgusted at my sickness, I looked at the table beside me and the bottle that was there and she noticed how I looked at it, yearning for an excuse to forget. Her smell invading my vision, reminding me of her face, the one who was there once and now was lost in the wind with the dust and the leaves that fall during the day.

“You should drink another” she began. “That always makes you more agreeable” she said as she stood up and walked around the room.

Her eyes followed me as I stood up and dressed myself. Her wondering eyes trying to figure out what I would do next. If I had known I would’ve told her. Maybe I would’ve cried at her feet or ask for forgiveness, but I was detached. Perhaps I should’ve said that I didn’t know myself. That I was lost in the dessert with no way out. That even if I did know the truth, I couldn’t ever be with her. And that now I have chained her to suffer the same fate as I. Wandering, lost, trying to put the pieces together but losing it all to love but most importantly guilt.  In the end however she was subjected to her own personal torture, by choice and love for a poor soul she thought to fix. But I wasn’t broken, simply yearning for something else, that was my biggest sin.

I finished dressing myself and managed to say “I have to go” feeling my hands shiver in the cold light.

She sat on the bed. “Of course,” her low-pitched voice defeated and yet kind, always trying.

I walked towards her and in a final attempt to be kind or at least decent, I kissed her forehead and said goodnight instead of the things that were in my head. As I walked towards the door, she managed some final words, “Stay” she pleaded. To which I only managed to say, “I’ll be back” and raced out of the room without so much as a second thought and after a few seconds I found myself outside only accompanied by the lights.  

I still held half a bottle in my hand and the bitter aftertaste of desire. The sidewalk was empty but damp from the rain, it had ceased, and yet more was soon to come. I drank from the bottle taking a large gulp as my hands grew colder and a shiver ran through my spine. Standing there, at a crossroads, trying to find my way back to the person that I was before.

Sometimes, I wondered whether my soul, my true self waited for me somewhere and whether he would be joyful to see me. Would we laugh at the things that have happened or would we drink to all the thing we could not share? Maybe death would deliver me to that person. But death always sounded so final, its momentary seduction strong and ever griping. Therein lies the infinite battle, light vs dark.

I continued to walk carefully, feeling uncomfortable in my own body while regaining the trail of thought. I felt the cold air through my skin, and it invaded it with a different feeling than the one I had felt for now, for it was not shame but regrets that haunted me now. It sank my body deeper into the bottle which I held in my hand. Its stink more present every time I took a sip of its immortal love.

As I drifted, I looked to the sky for guidance or at the very least purpose. My eyes filled with the darkness of the night, my senses began to fail me and soon I found myself on the slippery sidewalk floor facing the sky. The foul air filled my lungs, its intoxication drifting my mind from reality. And yet there was some sort of mysticism in the breeze, as if something else was beneath it, something creeping around the corner. A dream, or a memory within the oxygen. Pieces of the past, a part of the puzzle. A smell lingered, and the aftertaste remained for days to come.  Beneath the breeze was something everlasting, like time itself had manifested in the particles in the wind and coursed through me. It began to affect me as I laid there, growing overpowered by the currents my body turned heavy, my eyes began to deceive me, even my legs began to fail me. I decided to rest there and looked to the sky for fear of the ground swallowing me whole, and as my body shivered, there in that corner, a dream occurred.

A flash of light, a gust of wind and two of the youngest lovers in the world, a bright day and grand new city around them. Roads and sidewalks surrounded them, children played around them and a sun that paved way to their happiness.  The found themselves in a small plaza, and there were lots of people there, a different time when the world was bright and joyful, and the couple was hopeful. But there was another smell in the air, this one however was sweet and nostalgic, like if it was made out of candy or strawberries. There laid a large tree, its roots caught and entwined within the old pavement and which shadows hid a young man as he watched a young woman in the distance gazing at her surroundings with that nostalgic look, we all try to imitate and yet fail so miserably to replicate. She looked at the young man every so often to remind herself that he was still there, her wild eyes like diamonds in the faraway light calling to him, and the young man who thought himself the luckiest jeweler or perhaps simply the thief.

The young man averted his gaze, hesitating too to look at her, waiting for a sign, already feeling lonesome. The leaves above him danced and the rays of sunlight peered through the leaves, pouring like a golden wine on the roots of the old tree and it was pleasant for he heard the symphony of the wind still here in the middle of the city. As he drifted with his thoughts, he heard footsteps behind him, and as he turned around, he witnessed a smile as she approached him and leaned in for a kiss. She embraced him willingly and he took her in his arms and felt complete in all the glory. He smelled her hair and saw the affection that was true in the light of day and I was reminded of how one can have everything and lose it in the blink of an eye.

But for me, it was always the odd smell, the wind, the trees and the sun which always reminded me of her. Destined to be haunted by everything in your past, and then be reminded forever. But it was just a dream I thought. There are no regrets for my part, that memory as beautiful as it is, it’s only a dream, a reminder of why we were together. I was with her because I loved her, you see love is something else entirely. I was with her because I felt alive, thrilled or safe. To be free or unfree. To live together and to die together and to laugh and to cry. To find that which was lost or to discover something new entirely. In the end my heart simply grew tired, and there was nothing. Now I'm only left with the inexhaustible entity that plagues me.

The dream fades as I continue to drift, my body which was asleep stood up and continued its journey. Walking through streets and alleys of roads forgotten and paths untaken. Watching the moons ascension. The wind blew harder than before announcing the rain that would soon come to us. But I continued my path, never thinking of that memory again. Until I finally reached an empty parking lot which lights were dimmed, a neighborhood empty and desolate. I took my keys from my pocket, my hands shivered, and I managed to open the door throwing my body inside for it sometimes did not follow commands. I turned on the car and took a deep breath looking at they sky overstaying my time in this dark place, hoping for another dream. I took another drink for strength and found that I could not hold everything inside. “Just a bit longer” I told myself. And yet it wasn’t time for the dawn to awaken yet. The echoes of the thunder were yet near, calling to me like a voice in the darkness. And so, I drove far into the coldest valley. Hidden by the shadow of the moon. A small light in the darkness.

 The road was empty and without signs of life but except the flickering of the thunder in the distance. The car hummed as I continued to breathe, trying to conceal my true state and I felt my heart race faster each time. My thoughts grew darker, but I followed the road until I was surrounded by plains and the shadows that were made by large trees. “Just a bit more” I continued to tell myself as I followed the lights in the distance that appeared every few seconds. My body grew tired and my eyesight worsened by the second and yet I could still taste the aftertaste of that which was in the wind. Which not even the drink that was beside me could take away. It lingered like particles in the air, attaching itself to any host it could find. Its omniscient presence all around us, haunting my existence. And my mind drifted, with visions of a life I had completely forgotten. Evenings waiting for her at certain places, always looking at her through the window as she headed in the bar and sat with me in the booth. And we looked at each other with the most pleasant eyes and stares. Kissing and laughing through the smoke and the rain, even the darkest nights or the worst of days. There was nothing we could not fight together, perhaps everything but time. That treacherous widow always present in our lives and yet we do not see. It is the one thing that brought loneliness to my home.

I tried to stop my thoughts as I spotted an exit in the road. Following the dirt pathway and finally stopping the car in the middle of a field filled with thunderous echoes in the distance and the sounds of the vengeful winds. I got out of the car and felt it all. The grass moved ever so pleasantly. And from the silence there came some sort of hope. You see from silence comes everything else in the world.  

I followed the trail and the flickering of the lights as best as I could for, I was exhausted and dizzy from the drink until I reached a small hill on the outskirts. I sat on the top to look at the distance and the fiery wonders of nature. Taking the small bottle and taking another drink. My hands ached and shivered again, my heart raced and banged with every thunderous flicker and the lightning descended towards the ground lashing out against the earth much like I was. I took the bottle that was in my hand and looked at it, hesitating to take another drink. Asking myself if it was the way out or the way in to the deep.

I see the thunder echoing again and the lightning as it falls, lost and without path. Its bolts gleaming as they eventually fall to the ground obliterating anything in its path. My bright friend in the darkness, a memory, a dream. I see you once more and I am reminded of the things that I have lost, the images that are presented in my mind. Those that I cannot control, for you see the darkness only enhances the vision, they come as quickly as they go in a flash. It is a wonderful thing and yet a very sinister one, the way in which we see these linear images in our mind, always going back, never going forward. And yet I question how fickle our lives are, how we are but a whisper in the wind, in time. We perceive our reality in such an unperfect way, so much that it haunts us that our perceptions are shackles, bound by all the things around us. With so little choice, but there is an illusion, a story that we like to tell. And yet I marvel at the fiery nature and the rays that fall beside me, for you are the only thing that connects me to her now. My saving grace that falls from the atmosphere, a mirror into my soul. They say that you prevent us from truly seeing the colors of the night, but the night is far lonelier without you and your music. And in my weakest moments I embrace you like an old man embraces the certainty, the inevitability of life and death.

I still remember the last day I spent with her, and how in the end I did not know what to do with remainder of my love for her because for me it had not expired. In that night there was much rainfall, in my head I still hear the thunder and the last words she said to me. And still that fire has not been extinguished, I hope that she will return to me and the moons light will gleam upon her shoulders once more. The car lights will illuminate her eyes and her lips will meet mine in the cold or in the sun. And yet I tell my heart stories and I dream wonderful dreams in the dark, I forget my past, my present and my future and all the pieces fall to the abyss. Although I fear that the only memory, I will have of her is that thunderous face that I witnessed in the bitter end.

The tears came too soon, and they fell as mercifully as everything else. The sorrow unveiled itself one last time and I threw the bottle to the farthest depths of the hills and sank my fists deep into the earth begging for it to take me and drag me to the deepest of dungeons. For how can I do the things that I do and live any longer? My heart suffocates, my mind crumbles in the dark but my soul mourns for me and the person that it used to be.

Misery coursed through my veins reaching my heart in an instant, its pulse going higher and my breaths louder still. The sorrow moved like an untamed river of pain. A sorrow matched by the symphony of the thunder cracking in the distance attempting to burst the sky. My voice lost in the air, which to everyone else must have been a loud whisper lost in the wind and the echoes of the lightning. Begging, suffering to the grasp of time, gasping for air and no longer composed. And there, in my solitude I scram at the sky hoping it would break, laying in my private suffering, fighting the unseen battle. Exhausted, my body aches, yearning for the break of dawn where I could return to my normal self. The pain spreads through my veins expanding them each time until one day there will be nothing left. My fists deep in the earth, my tears flooding the darkest of parts of my life. The memories flowing like an open sink in the dark. I could still feel the grasp of time around me, in every particle and every breath I took. I could taste it in the wind, and saw it coursing through the dirt, and through the echoes in the air.

 And there in the silence laid the voices and all the love which was left behind. The thunder was the beginning of that love, the lightning the rage that came afterwards and the hate which was left in the bitter end. Deep down in the recess of my mind was a memory, and the smiles in the light and the embrace which I could never deny. I know now that she broke me, making me the weakest of all living creatures. Perhaps a weakness could be the thing that helps me rise from the abyss and run from my regrets. You see being with her was not my mistake, my mistake was something far different, for even the loneliest souls in the darkest of nights question themselves. If one day perhaps they will find it again, in the lips of another.

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Im sorry about grammar problems if there are any. Some paragraphs are a tad long. Im still a newby, hope you all like it. Looking forward to meeting any writers, I too like to read so.

Reviews

[Gwyn]

Great potential. There are a few grammar mistakes that can be fixed though. Some of the sentences run on a little bit. My advice is to try and read it out loud. If it sounds off or you run out of breath reading it, it's a sign that it's just a bit too long. I suggest Grammarly if you struggle with it. Overall, keep up with the good work!

[EQ]

Thanks a lot. This is very helpful and yes I confess I have a lot of problems with run on sentences. I can't seem to stop blabbering in many sentences. Thank you for reading!