"GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"
I duck as she throws my Yeezys at my head. I’m thinking, gotta be faster than that, babe. I step outside on the front porch. Head is beaming with heat, vein popping down to my left eyeball, heart palpitations. Would it be so bad if the fibers of my heart intertwined, and stopped being able to dance around with my blood? I take out a cigarette, quickly light it like a lung-failure patient jumps on an oxygen-mask. Deep, deep pull inside. Tilt my head up towards the wooden porch ceiling. Mold, yellowing, broken wood boards. Deep exhale out. Dragon breath. Yes, it would be bad. Let’s not die today. It was 0 degrees cold but I felt hotter than a summer in Mexico.
Thinking back to where we first met, and how we first looked at each other. How we first smiled. My goofy smile, her pretty, pearly-white siren smile. Lured me in like Calypso, the nymph detained Odysseus on his way back home. 7 years. 7 years Odysseus was trapped in her land. Lot of married men will tell you that’s nothing. Try 25 years and 24 and half with no sex, kiddo. Hahahaha.
Shut the fuck up. Nothing funny about your misery.
We met in a bookstore, which is ironic because I rarely ever read back then. But there she was. Dark brown hair, luscious locks draping down behind her skinny shoulders. Dimples in her clavicle. Pretty lips and alluring green-ember eyes. It didn’t take long for us to go out. The spark was there like a dead battery jumped by a V-8 truck. I could listen to her all day, and it wasn’t tough. She had a lot to say, and there was never a really dull moment. Always found that peculiar in a girl, when she’s talkative. But I never complained.
I remember we were invited to a party. I was running late so she showed up half an hour earlier. When I arrived, there was a guy speaking to her. She was never really able to tell a guy to fuck off, too sweet-hearted and kind for that. Kind of a bimbo, looking back. I need a girl who’s socially adept, knowledgeable of intersex dynamics, knows when a guy’s flirting (always), and knows how to excuse herself. But she was my sweetheart. We went home that night. I don’t think we slept for longer than an hour. Sweet, summer sweat. Wish I had a cigarette enthusiasm back then. Would’ve been even nicer, although, I didn’t think it could get better.
It couldn’t.
It’s always easier to find a new girl to fall in love with, despite however closed off you become from previous heartbreaks, than it is to let go of a girl you’ve fallen out of love with, for fear of never finding someone like her again.
Deep pull.
I love smoking. Cigarettes in particular. My deepest memories and feelings come out in thinly veiled smoke out in front of my eyes. Used to make me teary-eyed, the smoke. But now my contact lenses dance around in the fire like my heart dances with my blood. For now.
I need to leave her. Before she breaks even more than I’ve already broken her. Save some pieces for the next man. I notice I rarely think about myself and my well-being when I’m at my lowest. I’m always comparing to those who have it worse. If they have it worse than me, and they’re still moving and shuffling, do I really have an excuse or even a moment’s notice to complain about myself?
I’m blessed to be a man. Truly, I felt that, no matter how many burdens I’ve gone through, and will have to go through. Burdens women will never or should never have to know about it or experience. Yet still, I’d rather be a man. Give me 100 births where I can choose my gender, I’d choose a man 101 times.
“That’s seeexiiist” a midwit-IQ liberal arts chick will screech out at me.
You don’t get it baby. I’m sexist because I care more for you than I do myself or my men. I take on these burdens without complaint or tears streaming down my acne-free skin because I wouldn’t want to burden your fragile, little heart anymore than this life intends to on its own. Yes, I don’t want you going out at night. No, I don’t think your male coworker is just being kind to you because you’re a nice girl. You’re with me for many reasons, and one of them, believe it or not, is because I’m an oracle-like father figure to you. I am a guide of wisdom, far more capable of steering the ship than most men older than me, let alone our age, baby.
I don’t know where this story ends. But my cigarette is at its stub, and the cold has caught up to me. My hands are numb, and I only just noticed. I’d rather freeze a little longer than have to go inside. But that’s what bravery is, isn’t it? Doing something when you fear an outcome or don’t want to do something. I walk in.
She’s crying, legs folded, red face. My heart palpitates again. Beautiful girl.
I sit down next to her. Don’t say a word. Put my hand on her leg, then she turns her head to me, slowly. Beautiful girl. Soft, salty lips. How warm it felt, my cold, frozen skin on hers. Like a vanilla ice cream melting away. Our problems evaporating in thin air, like the cigarette I smoke to evaporate away my thoughts. The love was still there.
The love will always be there, kiddo. But that wasn’t enough to keep breaking her down into even more little pieces. This will be our last time, I say, catching my breath, looking at the mess we’ve both made.
Sweet, winter sweat.
We enjoy feeling pain and misery just as much as we do pleasure and happiness. Sorrow is much easier to access than joy, though. One requires past experiences and memories. The other requires a positive future with potential. Obviously, difficult to engineer happiness if there’s not too much to look back on. Especially when it’s no longer there. But pain is always there. Pain is sorta, kinda one of my best friends. We talk all the time. We rarely ever fight.
I’d win in the end, if we ever did. He knows it. I know it. But we never fight. I enjoy his company, the way I enjoy her company. Both of whom I should eviscerate from my life, but yet here I am, divulging in the same 6-foot hole I’ve dug for myself. Waiting for the snow to pile us all in.
My two best friends I will always love.
My man Josh is blasting romance genre
Beautiful. Miss her man, she was the best