Shards at Twilight

Have you ever noticed the pavement at twilight? The way the mica shards glint like tears on a black woman's face? Have you ever walked into a graveyard and asked the sculpted gravestones aloud "how did you guys deal with this shit?" As the smoke rolls off of your lips, tears drip down your cheeks and your brain wreaks havoc on itself; everything outside is soundless, but everything inside is louder than a woman screaming bloody murder at the full capacity of her lungs.

The sound of the cigarillo wrapper slowly sizzling as I take a deep drag off of it is comforting. I look around and see these gray mounds, crumbling into dust, the names barely distinguishable. Not many left in this small plot actually. Maybe thirty.

As you take the last drag off the butt, the heat burns your lips and the harsh pull slashes at the back of your throat. It’s no longer smooth. Flicking the stained filter away you watch it land in the leaves. It smolders for a minute then goes out. In the fading light it looks like a star dying; falling out of the sky as a dead weight. You pull the next smoke out from behind your ear and look at it. The thoughts and the screams get louder inside and the need to run causes the woman's lungs to grow weak. As if an asthma attack were coming on her screams become a dull roar. Like a waterfall with endless depth. The water keeps falling but it never strikes anything.

My head throbs as I light up. I perch on a stone marking a row with the letter R. R for revolving door. For running away. For really being sick of this shit. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and wish I had a hankie. Odd thing to be wishing for at the moment but I guess it applies. Go figure. There's always some humor somewhere.

The tip off your tongue tingles and your gums feel like they are being tickled. You smile thinking it’s ironic that the thing that relaxes you and allows you to breathe easier is slowly killing you. The nicotine is sinking into the tissue of your mouth and the soft malleable lungs in your chest. At least when you die the screaming woman inside will perish too. You gather saliva in your mouth to spit out the tingling sensation. It goes away for a few seconds as the moisture soothes the glands that have been dried out from the smoke. You exhale through your nose mentally grinning as you picture how you must look right now. Ripped jeans, boots, baseball hat and a crummy t shirt stained with food. How badass. 

Blue eyes. People comment on my eyes. I wish I had my fathers. His are blue. I have brown. It’s the dominant gene. Unfortunate. I want his blue eyes. Blue is more interesting. But I would look odd. Creepy. I wouldn’t look right smoking. At least with the brown eyes I look more mysterious. Darker. It fits.

Your nails have been natural too long. They need color. You long to spread the black ink onto the hard calcium at the end of your fingertips. The darkness soothes your soul. You’re proud with that color on your nails. Not sure why. But you’re proud of the fact that you can wear black nail polish, and any color clothing in any style you want. Any jewelry. People look at you and think what the fuck. How can she get away with that? Is she Goth? Is she emo? Ya. You are. Black is included in the color of the rainbow.  You cough as you laugh. Looking at your nails you notice they are stained orange. Damn carrots. A purple dye has sunk into the skin on your fingers. Red onions. They made you cry.

And now I feel like I am stuck. I'm stuck here and I don’t know how to get out. Yeah I have the transportation, but I don’t have the money. I long to go somewhere I'm not known. To some other part of the world. A small town where I could start over; become one of the locals. Just be the person I am. To not have to worry about it all. To just exist and enjoy existing. No more claustrophobia.

You know if your heart breaks one more time, it won’t heal again. You should have learned the first time you hurt yourself. Your eyes water again as the emotions of past events pop into your head. The pounding starts again and the woman begins to scream louder than before; which you thought was impossible. Your hands shake and you wish you hadn't had that last smoke. The nicotine would stop the shaking. Welcome to being a condemned angel. 

I had forgotten what the voice sounded like. Then it called. I had forgotten. Now I remember. And I hate it. The sound grates on my every existence. Like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. My body temperature goes wonky. I'm cold for hours after; my body broken out in permanent goose bumps. I keep thinking I had gotten rid of all my ghosts. But they keep popping up in my face at inconvenient intervals.

The trees aren't blushing yet, but you can picture them through blood shot eyes and wish you were drunk. You wouldn't give a shit about your actions then.  Hell you could do whatever you wanted. Act however you wanted. You could add to the tattoo you sport on your back. It would all be explained. Get a graphic half breed creature. Regret it for the rest of your life. The booze would be blamed. Not you. You wouldn’t be termed crazy. The booze would be blamed. 

Currently working in a camp kitchen, I'm in the middle, well the edge actually, of Maine. Western-bum-fuck-fancy-vacation-ville, Maine. I prep lunch and cook dinner for a gaggle of screaming and squeaking girls. They wear uniforms. I'm so sick of red and white. And blue. It’s like Americana day every day. If they were all put in street clothes and had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths no one would recognize them. I feel reform coming.

 

What would you do? Where would you do it? How would you look? Oh ya, back to that dream. Run away to some hick town where no one knows you and become some drunk at the local bar. Become a regular. Everyone would know you and wonder what the hell made you become this.  Some broke ass piece of white trash. Working in some kitchen for the rest of your life. You know if you work one more kitchen job you'll be stuck in that industry. Forever. It'll be the one steady thing in your miserable life. 

"Um u r gorgeous". He even spelled 'gorgeous' right. He loved me then. In October.  He's been the object in a lot of my writings. He will not be the object in this one. This one is about me. He might factor in, an unfortunate occurrence.  But he was part of my life. I can come to terms with that. Eventually. If I pretend it didn’t happen. Just forget it all. Hell half of the life I had with him I don’t remember I was so "happy". Turns out the happiness was false. My way of dealing with the denial. The fact that neither one of us was ready for the other. A creature of the sea and a creature of the land can never get along indefinitely. It’s been proven throughout history. In retrospect I was his Kilimanjaro, a heavy, steady weight that held him back.

The sickest part. The day you sat on the couch watching a movie together. You looked at him. Back at the movie. At him. At the movie. At your hand where the cheap piece of silver gleamed like an evil shackle, chaining you to him.  Your right hand moved to your left and touched the ring.  You tremble as if going through withdrawal. Your right hand slides the shackle off your ring finger.  Adrenaline took over. Red smeared the edges of your vision.

My sentence was over. I leaned toward him and placed the ring on the coffee table in front of him. He had tried to break it off a month ago. I thought I could make him fall in love with me again. Like a puppy he would moon over me with bright eyes; call me beautiful again. But I failed. In the mornings when I wake up I'm reminded. The soft, weak bane of my existence stands on those four words he utters right before I wake up: "I don’t love you". 

Chain smoking is the only way to pretend it doesn’t bother you. The cowboy killer smolders in your hand. Smoke drifts away from you like everything else does. Where the hell is the permanence in life?  Not here. Even these dead schmucks have moved on. Decades of decomposition will do that to a body.  To a heart. To a soul.

He did a lot of damage. If I ever go in for heart surgery I’ll know what to expect. I've felt the cutting, the tearing of the soft tissue. The breaking off of the hard scabs on the edges of the wound. The sting of the needle and the dull friction of the thread as it’s pulled through the muscle, stitching the two halves back together.  After the pain dissipates the loneliness moves in. It’s a reoccurring cycle. The only time I can escape is when I sleep.  I’ve found something permanent. Turns out, I wish it wasn’t. 

The woman no longer screams. Her lungs have collapsed. The mica doesn’t glint on the pavement anymore. Exhaustion throbs in your head. The anger fueled nicotine buzz has died and all you see are crumbling gravestones through eyes devoid of emotion. You know there can’t possibly be any tears left. Tomorrow you’ll be proven wrong.