Cigarettes

I run my thumb over the wheel of the lighter, catching the nearly unnoticeable notches of my fingerprint in the silver ridges. The cigarette dangles from between my dry lips. Unlit menthol toxins flirt with my olfactory bulb, flipping the switch like a light. I can feel the tip becoming soggy. Light me, it dares.

So I do.

Cli— click, whoosh.

The orange cherry bursts to life. I inhale deeply, letting the familiar chemicals fill the empty spaces inside of me. A gentle burn trails down my throat. I imagine the smoke swirling within my corrupted lungs, adding to the thick charcoal wall that cases them. I release my head, shut eyes to the sky that I envision above me. Darkness. Soft glow of the city not so far away. Sirens. Car horns.

Exhale.

I remember my days as a young girl in the midwest. A night like this would be captured in a different light. No light. Just the stars that shine from a million miles away and a single street lamp . The rattle of unknown creatures scampering in the brush. Cicadas humming a tune to the heavy summer air. Crickets and frogs chirping back and forth, communicating a language that humans have assumed onto them. Fireflies dancing in the distance. Dew accumulating in the soft, lush grass. A light breeze awakening a tired soul.

I lift the cigarette to my cracked lips.

Inhale.

Something brushes up against me and catches me off guard. I snap my head to the left— it’s a young man hurrying down the fire escape. Relief floods over me. I nervously look around. The metal of the stairs digs into my tender skin and I quickly wonder why it’s even worth it to crawl out of my window for five minutes of vulnerability for a cigarette.

Exhale.

Flick.

The ash tumbles down half of a flight, falling through the holes in the stairs, barely catching the stranger I just encountered. My body shudders at the thought of him. Silent, fleeting. A tear stripes my cheek with wetness. I wipe it away with my tattered sleeve.

Inhale.

The almighty tobacco buzz creeps to my head now, numbing my brain. Don’t think so hard, the smoke echoes in my mind. The tears continue. I glance downward and see the man from the stairs hit the pavement. A girl runs up to his side, a graceful collision, and he holds her almost as if he thought that he might never get to do so again.

It must be nice to live in a relationship without fear. To not have a constant shadow of the past lurking around every corner, waiting to jump out at you with teeth bared, snarling. Look at me, it demands.

Exhale.

I watch the smoke roll over itself in the glow of the street lamps until it is just another piece of the negative space. I notice that I’m shaking, I slam my sweaty palm to my forehead.

I have always hated the term “fucking”. It sounds dirty, emotionless. Even when there is no love present there are still feelings— although I’ve only ever experienced displeasure and disconnect.

Even through the hatred and animosity I have towards the men that use me, I continue to make broken love to them. Giving myself away like a box of free kittens. One after another, I tell myself that I don’t deserve this. But it’s hard to keep that mentality. After all this time I have just become so desensitized to it all. I’m like a puppet being controlled by the terrors of my past.

Inhale.

Short exhale.

Inhale.

Any shrink would categorize me quicker than I could get the first sentence out. They would open to the “Managing Sexually Abused Patients” chapter of the diagnosis manual and spit out text book explanations as to why I have these “symptoms” of self loathing feelings, why I sleep with any man that shows interest, why I can’t find security within myself. Then they would use their ball point pen to write me off a prescription that is just as slimy as their morals. Pills. Pills are the answer.

Exhale.

Flick.

Inhale.

I bounce my legs fast. I look down at my stained hightop sneakers. A little piece of ash sits upon the rubber toe.

There is no chance of me finding someone who can put me back together, I’ve been knocked off of the wall far too many times. It’s a miracle there are still pieces of me at all. Shattered glass still sparkles, but if you get too close you’ll bleed.

Exhale.

I smash the fragile cigarette to the dull brick wall, kick the ash from my shoe, and climb back through the window of my apartment praying for the strength to make it through just one more day.

4:42 AM

I was dreaming of war, something that I didn’t do often. Now, I have never killed anyone. Not even in a dream. But, I found myself with a gun to a stranger’s chest and an increased heart rate reminding me that I needed to make a decision.

How does someone who absolutely detests violence come to be dreaming about being a soldier?

I tried to reason with myself and the others around me. “Kill her,” her own brothers even said. It seemed to be that I was the only one who was really debating sparing her. Tears began to stream down my face. I knew that I had a job to protect the woman that everyone was shooting at, amazing how she hadn’t been shot already.

I also knew that if I let this soldier live, she would just go back to doing the same thing. And it would show the other soldiers that I wasn’t, in fact, cut out for this. We would probably wind up in a similar situation down the road. Having so much power over another’s life terrified me beyond a point of reason.

I will never know what my dream self did, because I awoke to a sun barely rising on a foggy Thursday morning. 4:42 AM. The heat of the June night would soon evolve to a greater humidity when the sun crept up over the full tree line.

I rolled over in the gray tangle of sheets that I had created in the night. I rubbed my eyes so hard that I began to see stars in my head. I breathed in two deep breaths before hitting my feet to the carpet.

My rheumatic legs began to wake up when I walked over to the windows that dripped with perspiration. I looked out into the distance only to find fog and a dark blue sky with an amber ombre beginning. Everything looked so peaceful. Birds chirping came into my ears. I felt a small comfort in my hollow heart, knowing that my reality wasn’t how it seemed to be in my dream.

Tiny bumps arose on my bare skin, reminding me of the warm bed I had abandoned. I crept away from the window to wrap up alone in a bed for two. I found no solace when the bed had gone cold so quickly.

I hoped to dream of a time when there would be someone to keep the blankets heated when I got up for a moment in the night, or someone to hold me when I dreamt about a war I did not want to fight in.

I closed my eyes and tried to beat the rising sun with sleep. With another deep breath, I was quickly falling back to unconsciousness.

Haunted

And when he said goodbye, I thought that everything about him would change. I thought that the him I had found myself so wrapped up in would remain as so only in the stardust of my memories.

But I was wrong.

His eyes still pierce mine with a deadly hazel stare. His smell still entrances me every time I catch a hint of it. His voice still makes my heart jump every time it spills out of his smirking lips, giving me hope that maybe someday his words will once again be meant for my ears.

I won’t forget the things that only I knew, they will remain trapped in my mind. No matter how many times I set them free, they will always come in with the rain and flood the empty heart where flowers once bloomed. Maybe at one time I was special, I was different. But things change and people do— I guess — too. Not their mannerisms but their desires. And how painful it is to be unwanted. To know that someone who was once addicted to every single piece of me, now craves a new taste.

The things that once surrounded me with comfort are now haunting me in my sleep. I thought at least I would have some freedom when I shut my eyes, but every time I close mine, I see yours. Taunting me like emeralds behind a glass case, reminding me that I can look all that I want, but I can’t touch.

In the end, I just want him to be happy— even if I can’t be. I want him to find what will fill him with joy when the sun rises and hold him at night when it sets. Now I can’t stop thinking about how ironic it is that they tell you to find someone who makes you happy, but not to depend on others for happiness.