Our Last Days

Eyes creek open on a warm winter morning, a contradiction to start a war. The faint sound of cars humming by on the street creeps out from the glass of my window. The warmth of a lover accompanies the moment, as i run my fingers through her hair. An effort to see if she has woken up. She turns to me and smiles, another day will fall to those lips. I am a young, and very unhappy man, clouded by doubts and low self value. She is a stunning mess, eyes deeper than space and cheeks that carry a permanent smile. I look up at a ceiling, empty and spaceless, how to feel once you’ve given up your equity to the will of a beautiful tyrant. Her lovely voice rings my ears, ‘Water my dear’ she requests at once. What am i to do but oblige? The weight of a heart is far too heavy on a cracked heart. Her tried hands reaching everso towards me now, taking the breath from my words ‘Yes my love’. How i’ve diluted her name now, a woman i’ve longed over with extreme effort, as a worker does a wage. She’s held me up, also held me back over countless days sprayed over her brow as the heat of a heart's fire solemnly burns. Confused to ask if i’m okay or if it is too warm, she eyes a drop rolling on my cheek. Her precious smile attempts to rekindle a smudge of hope. ‘I love you’ she says, in a flawlessly shaky voice.

I wish i could forget our past, the mistakes and how they’d add up. I should have seen events beforehand, for we fall as do leaves and seasons, aligned right on time. Her choices cut me deeper than knives, and play treacherous loops around my head as she lies in my bed. However something keeps me by, perhaps it's the fire in her eyes, or the sweetness of her lips. Or how she does cast a spell on the world, hides her teeth and dances a shrewd blossom into the city streets. I’ve Told her against her ways over again, she has her own way of falling too. Rigid details reflect at me while she glances away, desperation leaks from her eyes where tears could have once existed. ‘I love you too’ almost feels forced as it clears the density from the air on every morning.
We could have always been more, even now, we could give in to our bittersweet tendencies.

It has been a year since i’ve first seen her light, and a year since i’ve seen a smile glow on her face. Its as if she is running from a memory and i am her cover. But a book she’ll never read. A frame freezes over and words run from sight, ‘Do you remember when we first met?’ i spurt in ill advice to myself. ‘Hardly’ she replied with a flare, ‘Our first few months are a blur to me’. she says carefully as i look away. ‘Me too’ i concluded, although i can recall each magical day with vivid retrospection. The air is hard to breathe with you ‘i will be back’, i can't breathe in here ‘i am going to have a cigarette’. She nods in agreement as if she knew what i couldn’t say. As i move towards the door i can see a faint excretion of sadness arise on her face, piercing expressions of failure jab me with a double edge. A bloody twist of the doorknob and a gust down the stairs, and the wind couldn’t be more cold.

I love her, thoughts pace, i love her so much as i lie to myself. I cannot appoint blame, i gave it my all. Slaved over her majesty for every second passed. The effort justification has massacred my esteem. She’s all but the same, pushed back from my dying curls. Hit with waves of doubt, scarring the glow of her face that i’ve studied so in depth during our times. She’s saved my life, so that i may waste away in agony with her, and i’ve promised her a world for which i have burned to ashes. However our fire still glows, a pit of embers that sting our skin against sparks of enlightenment, for all of the up’s and downs. Now how i dream of something perfect. Having been spoiled by god’s hand.

An abrasive wind clicks back the buttons on my jacket as i stand on the front patio of my old, run of the mill apartment complex. Slowly inhaling the rich tobacco from an unfiltered cigarette. Exhaling a gust of harsh smoke into the breeze, i look up towards the clouds that move overhead. Their shapes churning with time as i dwell upon my discontent. I can’t help placing emphasis on every thought that screams i need something better.

By: Tyler V. Quarello