the skyscrapers were so tall that i momentarily forgot just how tiny purpose is. even the streets sang with the thuds of a thousand heartbeats, and the yellow taxi’s chased faster than two lovers trying to beat the train across the tracks, fast fast fast but then both of their hearts just stop and those white lights are never truly white, never as white as the linen bed fabrics your mother would drape over you when you were a child. when you were young.
i remember that you rarely ever drank coffee. but when you did, you made a point of thoroughly stirring the cream until the color was just right like paint on a palette, as if it brought out the taste. and the butter spread across your toast was so ample, like an apple tree on a storybook’s hardcover or like a sunset that occurs a quarter past the natural time for dusk. something was surreal.
i left you for the starry midnights of an unforgettable city. i wrote a seven-letter goodbye on the back of a folded up napkin from wednesday evening’s dinner and slipped it beneath your palm while you were sleeping. you probably thought i was joking. you probably didn’t wake up to cold space that used to contain my body’s heat because i remembered to leave the window open just a crack and so the breeze told you nothing was wrong. instead, it was a sunny day. you smiled against my neck. (you tucked your face into the pillow’s sleeve, dreaming about nothing.)
i broke hearts in alleyways, stuffed lies down throats and dispensed pretty paper for the lucky ones. it snowed twice in december, which made me think of you both times. i thought about how your hands felt better than the bite of frost and how your eyes were so neon during our first moonlight encounter, eleven minutes following an ‘i love you’ that seemed to stain upon the stitches of my wrists.
i no longer knew why i wanted to become another speck of dust in such a riveted universe. i still didn’t understand why you did, too.
Tagged with #late nights with m + j#prose#spilled ink#creative writing
