I could feel the high creeping down my vertebrae and tiny electric sparks making their way down to my limbs as it wrapped my whole body in a trance. The memory lanes cleared and I knew that soon enough with another puff or two I’ll start walking down these whimsical lanes holding bittersweet flashes of her. I also knew that soon these lanes will make my heart explode and I will drown myself in memories of her and then cling to every word that was shared between us, every glance that we stole from each other echoing in my chest like a beat of my heart. I will look up her pictures and then find myself skipping a beat trying to memorize every line of her beautiful face. I will try to paint out her face on a canvas to make myself believe that I can somehow make her mine again with every stroke of my brush.
Time is a very amusing mistress, it likes to watch. It slowly builds up things just so it can make them fall like a house of cards. It will make you fall in love with someone and then torture you for falling for her manipulation. But it eventually gets bored and makes the charm and torture of that love wear off. One day you will be swimming in the pools of love and passion and the next you will be disenchanted and lost in the middle of a desert with nothing but sadness and despair consuming your poor rotten bones. All those phone calls you exchanged, all those pages you filled with your declarations of love and all those vows you made disappear into the sands of time so much so that you are left dumbfounded at how time had lifted you up into the air and then let you go. You fell and fell. Now, left with memories of what was and what had been; lost ones in their own way that have bits of you that can not ever be recovered.
Maybe I need a drink; or two, damn it! Why does this keep happening to me! Why do I scribble all of this down like every word of mine is an addition to a Fitzgerald novel or I’ll end up being the next Bukowski? Do I only fall in love so that I get hurt and then bleed myself onto a piece of paper for the world to read? Get hurt by choice only to get a few good quotes or novels out of it? Does every wannabe writer do that? Turning their tragedy into literature? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but you know what, I don’t care! “Maybe’s” were never my comfort zone. All I know is that I am glad that I got to see her delicate face even once; so beautiful yet so heartbreaking. Oh time, you think you may have destroyed me, you may also think that I regret ever falling for your manipulation, but you know what, I am grateful. She may have pushed me into a hell that burns my veins and rusts away the very core of my soul but I will not take a way out of it even if I could because you, time, have shown me my salvation. If someone pulls me out, I will just throw myself back in. I have grown fond of self-hurt and my sadist tendencies have started to take a toll on my own being.
And as I will burn in this fire I myself have created, I will imagine myself walking with her on a beautiful beach, our hands entwined as if pieces of the same puzzle. Running along the shore-line, I after her like a moth after a flame. Yes, things were less complicated and far easier when we were just friends, I could smile at her and call her and not feel the silence that now lingers between both of us. My heart has gone into overdrive and as I expected, I found myself dialing her number that had been plastered onto the walls of my brain even though I had removed it from my phone. I dialed. It rang, she will not pick up, I hope she doesn’t. “Hello”. Oh that voice! I put the phone down because that voice had brought on a whole new flood of emotions that rumbled like an earthquake and came with the gigantic force of a tsunami. I started laughing, a single hello had just made me weak to my very core; how could I stand a full conversation?- This heart of mine, I tell you is a paradox of a conspiring bastard that has claimed to be free and yet still be enslaved. All of my resolve, all of my so called strength, drained out. But my heart wanted more, it longed to hear her say my name, it longed for another word from her. It was hard for me to breathe but my heart was jumping up and down as if it was pumping coffee instead of blood into my body. The thing about longing for someone was that you never know when you’ve reached its darkest depth and drowned in their want. You can only compare when you are to where you’ve been and each time I knew I drowned to a greater degree.
Not all things familiar to a human being are good just as not all things unfamiliar are good. My phone started buzzing; a sense of dread erupted in my chest because I knew who it would be. With trembling hands I picked up the phone and looked at the screen and there it was, her number flashing. I have a chance to hear her voice again! Don’t pick up! But I want to! Don’t! I want to hear her voice!
Okay, play it cool. Hear her out?
“Hello”
“You called?”
“Oh that, I dialed by mistake” Even I could hear the lie in my voice.
“You are drunk again aren’t you?”
“A bit. I’m sorry, it was dialed by mistake”
“You know what? your whole existence is a mistake, asshole”
Disconnect. Emptiness. She was gone again. What could I do now? I knew the drill, call her, apologize and ask her to come back to me because I couldn’t stand the idea of life without her sweet scent beside me. But, not tonight, maybe never again because I could feel every memory that I had with her blurring away in the cloud of smoke surrounding my joint, but that is what happens every other night. I make promises to myself that I know can’t be fulfilled. Lie to myself that maybe the next day will hold something better…I heard the phone ring again and I looked at the screen it flashed her number. I am probably going to pass out; I need to pass out to soothe away the pain and forget, just forget. As the consciousness flew, so did the memory of her face; the only thing I had left of her, of us..
