On the Sticks - 1

And so it is, just like you said it would be, life goes easy on me.
Most of the time.

The silence is deafening. Never you mind the pitter-patter of the rain on the sill and against the closed windows. Never you mind the voices, beats, and crackling sounds continuously being emitted by the decade-old speaker I've inherited from this apartment's former tenants: the silence overpowers us all.

One stick. Two sticks. Three. One pack almost gone, but I can still taste cinnamon on my tongue. A faint vanilla scent is still on my skin, on my hands, on my shirt. You and your vanilla scent. The pillows, I bet they still smell of you.

And so it is, the shorter story;
No love, no glory; no hero in her sky.

They're all that's left. You took away all there is to take. Except for these cigarettes. Except for the sheets you hated so much because they make you scratch your skin all night and you wake up with red, red arms. And thighs.

You picked them, you know. I had chosen the plain blue, green, and white plaid. You found them to be boring so you got those swirly violet and grey - no indigo and ash, you had called them, as if there could be some marked difference between those colors - sheets instead. It's your fault you spent most nights scratching and most mornings complaining. It's your fault.

How dare you leave these sheets behind.

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Four sticks. Four cigarette butts on the desk. You even took my ashtray with you. I loved that ashtray. I had gotten that at a second hand store in Peru two years ago - that morning when I found myself so disoriented that I could not find my way back to the motel and instead I ended up at that alley. You had rescued me. You had found me as if I had a homing device around my ankle. You had seen me looking at that ashtray while you asked me what I was doing out of bed at 9:30 AM and how long I was out.  So you bought that ashtray for me when I could not say a word. That ashtray, with your money.

Even so, that ashtray was supposed to be mine.

And so it is, just like you said it should be: we'll both forget the breeze.
Most of the time.

Whoever put that idea in your head must be shot. In the head. Through the heart. And through both soles of the feet.


Aren't you already living your life? If not, then what have you been doing all along? Whose life did you steal? Whose body is that? What have you been doing all this time -- sleepwalking?

And so it is: the colder water,
the blower's daughter, the pupil in denial.

The London sky is as bleak as usual. Nothing ever changes in this side of the world. Well, they do: from one shade of grey to another. From the lightest smoke to a cloudy black. And on those nights that the stars actually appeared, you would point out the constellations and I would listen, not really making out the shapes, not really caring if what you say were actually true. You talked a lot; you filled the silence. You were my laughter.

That ashtray should have stayed mine. These sheets should have been wrapped around your legs now. Those things should have stayed together.

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

I can't take my mind...

My mind...my mind...

Off you.

'Til I find somebody new.