Things I'm Not Good At...

Letting fires burn out.

     There has been a fire in my life. I think it started the moment I finished the last story I wrote for a grade. This fire has burned deep and loud. I think it might have come close to dying a few times. Either way it scorched my skin.
     It seems to be dying down. I long for the warmth it gave off in a hazy fit of recollection the few minutes before I finally fall asleep. I wake up and burn the same way.
     I've had a consistent record of dowsing fires and running, as fast I could, away from the embers and what they all felt like once. I've tried to fan flames, wasting my breath, frantically breaking my lungs. I can't find enough water anywhere this time. I'm scared.

     So I will change.

     I will let this fire linger. Watch as the flames turn into a faint orange glow. The smoke it gives off is suffocating me. I will shift. I will get some air, let this fire breathe and change. I would pray to God if I believed that time, free time, and a strong gust of wind will spark the flames into the blaze I imagine it can be. I will stoke this fire will all the strength I can muster, but I will not inhale this smoke anymore. I will guard my lungs. I will not inhale you.

"So let's go out west and bask in the overcast..."

I hate how some songs and some weather still reminds me of you. Metal love songs. Ditching class on mornings that felt like this afternoon, to slip out of my jeans and under your sheets, just to get some sleep. I keep thinking about that time I told you I liked cold kisses. Memories are fine I guess, just not today.

The Difference Between Medicine and Poison

     Do you remember the night we sat on your roof? It was summer I think, or getting close at least. It might have been the day we walked around a city you lived in when your life fell apart, where I now spend all of my week days. I sometimes I drive past your old street thinking about the night it all started. One of my destinationless drives that led me to your front porch, and eventually that shitty couch where we crashed into each other.

     The air was cool. my skin was burning. We sat too far apart. We didn't touch. I didn't know if I was allowed to touch you anymore. Or if I ever touched you at all. Your eyes were clear, tired. The lids a translucent pink. I think I loved that about you. That you always looked like you'd been crying. In retrospect you always were. In retrospect I always thought I loved you.
     It felt like the place we should have sat years ago. On top of that blue house. Sharing a pack of Camels, letting the nicotine swirl through us. We were the slowest burning fire. You looked out across the rooftops of neighbors we never got to know. You talked about the ocean. About the problem with all of our friends. Or maybe you talked about the future that you're still working toward. The ideas that rolled off your tongue like dice. You'd be fine no matter what, just never alone. I watched you from where I sat. My fingers dying to lock within yours. My lips dying to taste the smoke on your tongue. You still blow so much smoke.


     We headed back in through the window. You first, I followed, so common those days. The lights were on. We were alone. You kissed me. I panicked. You asked if I wanted it and I said "yes", breathless. A lie I didn't know I was telling.
     We laid close in your bed. Our skin in familiar company. Your arms loosely wrapped around my waist. It felt crowded. The bed was always too small. We just didn't fit anymore. Or didn't want to. Your breath on my neck felt like history. I closed my eyes and prayed to the empty sky I'd forget your smell, your crooked smile, and all the things I ever knew too well. I turned over and kissed you hard on the mouth.

     It felt like the worst night of my life, and in comparison to the rest of the nights that compete, it still wins.

Menthol

     These days it seems like anything less than a full pack of cigarettes isn't enough. I liken myself to this feeling too often. For years. Even in the years I felt full, sustained.

     I sat alone, or in the best company, on the pavement at two in the morning staring at the stars, remembering when things felt worse. How they should feel now, but they can't. It was a night like that one I listened to a now distance voice tell me, "She's just not you."  But as the summer months came, planes were caught, plans were made and I still stared at the stars alone, at two in the morning, killing my lungs and I thought of you. All of you. And hoped that you were doing alright.

     I said the other day to a good friend "I am too much initially or eventually." it occurs to me now as I try to find a glimpse of myself in other people’s words that I am perhaps always too much but never enough.

     I am notorious for breaking myself for you. For answering every call for help. For holding fast to hope I lost almost as quickly as I etched it into my skin. I am your rock. Your safe place. Your shoulder. Your conscience. Your savior. Your dictionary. Your rage. Your logic. I am all these things as honest and severe as you need. I am all of these things but I am never enough of whatever else you want. I am too much and hard to break.I fall apart on my own time. In parked cars or speeding on freeways. Or in your bed. Or that bench in your front yard. On the other end of phone lines.