Seeing, but never feeling.

Here I am, once again. Another late night, sitting on the edge of my bed after a long day of work. Clothes, shoes, books and papers scattered across the bedroom floor but they're just sacraments of reality to me. They're anchors, just like the rest of my home. The grey couch, the grey carpet, the grey walls- anchors that constantly wake my daydreams of Macaroons, white dresses, and bicycles in Paris. They steal me away from New York, city skylines and beautiful people, and force me into a routine so depressing I could slit my throat right here on this bed. Who is the culprit? The fantasy or the reality? Who is to blame for my yearning?

I blame the books. The black-and-white lined pages that composed majority of my childhood. They're the ones that educated me, that told me about places far away from this one, where even boring old meadows held the sweetest of surprises, and a boat in the sea meant only one thing: adventure. Books, they are the ones that ruined me. They brought my mind so far away but kept my body spotless and thirsting to be transformed, to follow the imagination into wondrous worlds of lives I'd never live.

What good is seeing the unknown but never feeling it? 

Those pages, they're dangerous. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll find my way home

Do I stay? Do I leave? Where do I go? What about all these faces I'll probably never see again? Is this a phase? I don't know. I've been itching to get up and leave, fulfill my gypsy needs and just leave it all behind me. Find a new life. I know it's not that easy, but oh, how I wish it was. The people around me are no longer the people they used to be. They're nothing but anchors, dedicated to pulling me down and making the struggle even harder. What are they good for, what are you good for? We used to laugh, we used to play, now all we do is argue and all I do is find you annoying. I don't see myself being here much longer. Why continue drinking the poison? For hope that it turns into wine, I suppose. And that everything will go back to normal and I will be happy with the faces I know too well and the small city with no adventure.
I long for dirty windows of metal buses, chattering along dusty roads. Strange places, strange faces, nomads wrinkled with the wear of travel. I long for different cities every week, different people to dance with, different dogs to touch. I wish I could pack my entire life into a suitcase and just bid this one goodbye.

Lit up roads

I stand out on the balcony and watch the cars, twenty-seven stories below me. Our number. It's hard to tell how fast they're going from way up here. They all look like little fireflies inching to get to their Evangelines. So many cars in the world and so many significant stories for each. Your car is our place, our little bubble. Our private sphere where we say hello along with a quick kiss on the lips, where we fill each other in on what we missed and the funny stories of the day.  Your car, that has brought us on beach trips and parties and dinners. Where our friends sit in the back and we all feel like a happy family, driving through fast food joints and dropping fries on the floor. Where you still hold my hand if I'm sad, and put your arm around me if I'm crying, even if it's a manual. Where we scream out the window on the highway because our mothers make our veins bloat and college doesn't seem to give us a break. Where we laugh until our stomachs hurt, and sing along to the songs on the radio in falsetto. Where conversations only end when the road does. Where we have our most bittersweet goodbyes because you know you'll have to go home alone at the end of the day, and only our little tradition makes it somewhat easier. We've shared more interesting places but I'd much rather be at the in between of where we were and where we have yet to go. Who knew we would spend thirty-three months driving around in that car?

Impaired Vision

A deep inhale, the smoke filling my browning lungs and my nerves plateauing into a steady numb. A slow, practiced exhale of a stream of city smog, my contribution to our already grey skies. The after taste of bitter medication, my daily fix of cigarettes to clear my mind and block out my anger. Sometimes one stick a day, sometimes twelve in an hour. It depends.

A nervous bite of the lip along with a churning of the gut. Little goosebumps along my arms and an irritating strand of hair tickling my chin like a misplaced feather. Yellowed teeth tap dancing in my mouth- freezing from the cold. Feet hanging off the edge, butt hard from the concrete, eyes gazing out into the horizon of pollution.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

For something that may never come. It's my every-evening routine to come out here onto this bridge and watch the traffic ease over the ledges, looking for answers in the never-ending trail of lights and echoes of blowing horns.

Be a Good Baby, Do What I Want.

Red nail polish, chipped into little squares on her dirty nails. It's kind of disgusting, really, but charming in a way. It's so .. her. Careless, fragmented, lived. She wraps her lips around the pipe and inhales into a choking cough, tears creep onto the edges of her lashes and she gasps for air. I take a long sip of wine, I'm almost done with the bottle. My words are slurred and emotions are heavy as I watch her hold onto the glass pipe like she's five and doesn't want to get lost in a crowd of strangers. Her hair falls over her face but she doesn't bother to move it, her eyes are glazed but she's still with me. I know her, and she isn't anywhere near where she wants to be.

She complains that she isn't hit enough, but still holds onto the pipe, "don't you have anything better?"

Her teeth are the shade of white only money can create. I wonder if her parents know she's here with me, or if she's even crossed their minds today. Her family's pretty fucked up. I never ask, but she sometimes slips a hint or two in our conversations, especially when it comes to her mom's anti-depressants. Oh well, they're rich, and money is a great distraction from a fucked up reality.

I like to think of myself as her escape, even though I know it's the drugs, really. At least she chooses to share her little heaven with me. She always comes to me when she wants something fun, she tells me that I'm the only one who understands her, even though I don't even know her last name.

We walk over to the swimming pool, as we always do when the cocaine comes out to play. Our feet dipped into the sapphire water, I watch her lower her key into the powder and then into her nostrils, the obnoxious snort that follows and the clearing of her throat. I've never tried cocaine because it scares the shit out of me, but I always give it to her. I give her whatever she wants and never ask for anything in return, no matter how hard it is to get some of the things she wants.

I kind of like her more when she's drugged up compared to when she isn't. She still doesn't say much, but she looks at me with that knowing. I don't want to over-think, maybe it's nothing. But it gets to me every time. More than what she wears, more than how she fucking makes me feel, it's that stare she gives me that lingers. It's like no other love I've ever had before, no fights about what time we're supposed to meet up, what we're supposed to be saying, how we're supposed to fucking live. Basically, no bullshit. Hell, I don't even know. It's just some kind of easy-going bond we have. We don't want drama, we don't want complications, we just want to drink wine, sit in silence, and share a sapphire-blue pool.