Smoke and Mirrors

I'm so very grown up

Hair undone

Pumps on the table

Roll up lies between my fingers, and

Inhale, exhale.

"Don't you worry about me,

I'm fine,

Things just don't work out."

I can see the reflection of the smoke in your skeptic eyes

But you talk about the weather,

The neighbors,

The price of tea in China.

Inhale, exhale.

Sometimes I try to hold it in until my throat closes and my eyes water

and the sadness seeps from my skin.

'Cuz people don't want to breathe in that kind of secondhand smoke.

They'd much rather put me in glass boxes

And paint red X's over their doorways.

It's a social taboo,

Don't say a word,

Just hold your breath and smile.

My heart's beating too hard,

My lungs are breathing too loudly,

Rattling the tangled up sentences

Buried beneath an unfamiliar voice.

My smile is suffocating me.

But my lips are addicted

So who cares if the lipstick smudges?

Inhale, inhale, inhale

I need to get out,

I need to breathe,

I'm coughing up ash-stained memories that

Shake me,

Rip me,

Aching lungs sucking in unfamiliar air

Fingertips trembling as I light another match.

"Can't we just talk about it, baby?

Can't we figure this one out?"

You hand me another mask

And I breathe it in,

Inhale, exhale.

I watch the smoke reflected in your eyes.

Don't be so disappointed.

You tried even less than I did.

~effervescent laughter

Paris

  Paris was where I tasted newness again.

     When I first arrived, it was crowded, full of life and color and familiarity.  But it wasn't new, like I thought it would be.  It rained sometimes, and washed up mistakes would overflow out of the gutters.  The same nightmares, the same lifelessness, the same resistance had followed me.  My resistance, overused memories and monochromatic emotions, still lurked behind the colorful signs and the tourist destination spots. 

   So I decided to step off the beaten path.

   I wandered, turning right sometimes, turning left others, until I reached the end.

   I wouldn't know what else to call it, this place on the outskirts where Paris still somewhat existed.  But it was empty, quiet, blank. 

   I breathed out those old memories.  And began to write.

    It was refreshing.  It was awakening.  There was still resistance, don't misunderstand me, but I could combat it with an energy I didn't know I possessed.  I had access to those old memories that had sucked me in and confined me to the same emotions previously.  But now they were new tools, only used for writing if I felt like it.  And even though it rained every day, it was almost cleansing, washing away the mistakes.

    The place soon developed its own color, its own life, crowded with ideas and inspiration and untouched by tourists who take more than pictures and graffiti their opinions onto the walls.

   Then one day I found the plane ticket I had left in my sweater pockets, along with the crumpled peanut packages and loose change. The date: 1/13/2012.

    I packed my things, locked the door, and found my way back to the airport.  But the key still hangs around my neck. Paris hasn't left me just yet.

   That place--where it is left unwritten and open, waiting for you, where Paris really is--taught me to be original again, to push my mind's boundaries, to write myself where I've never been before.  And I hope that all those who travel there throw away the brochures and walk past the gift shops and find their own Paris.

~effervescent laughter

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The ashy snow piles up on the sides of abandoned streets, half melted, half crusted over with ice. Ruins are fading around me, empty plots of land where houses once stood, where people once lived.  Soggy bits of paper are stuck to the crumbling walls, some scorched by fire, others shredded to bits. I peel one off of the ground, looking at the melting ink sliding off words. My words.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

 

I stand surrounded by crumbling walls, each containing stray memories.  A tricycle.  A roll of film undone, fluttering in the grey light.  A broken mirror.  Bits and pieces of the lives that were once part of mine.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

I avoid the streets, instead crossing the muddy ground, boards sticking out, barbed wire crisscrossing over doorways. I pass more memories, more failures, stepping over them and keeping my eyes on the sky.  I've held each, felt the weight in my hands, memorized every mistake, the silence stretching out around me.

But at the top of the hill, one house stands alone.  It is tall, with large empty windows and flowers peeking out of the muddy ice.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

It grows larger, towering over me as I stand on its steps.  I stop at the doorway I have never crossed.

All the others are filled with memories, left by people who left me. But here, the floors are dusty and bare.  A single grand staircase reaches up into the darkness of the second floor.

This is the last house.  I hesitate, then step across the doorway.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The doorway fades; with every step I take the carpet turns to dust, floorboards breaking away.

 

I step onto the staircase.

The windows crack.  I take another step.

The wallpaper begins peeling off in large strips.

 

I take more steps, the floor melting, walls crumbling, windows shattering.  The darkness of the second floor opens to greet me, four words desperately repeating in my head.

 

Do you remember me?

The roof is caving in above my head, cracks opening and letting in the dim grey light of outside.  A thick layer of dust covers the floor. Along the back wall stands a tall mirror.

I walk alone. I walk alone.

The floor shudders beneath me, dust falling from the roof.  The mirror is clean, with a long crack running across it.  Wedged in between the glass and the frame is a scrap of paper.  

I reach for it, pulling it slowly and gently so it doesn't tear.

It's a photograph of the day you and her met.

The floor is buckling beneath my feet, groaning and twisting, as if the house is trying to spit me out. The mirror is cracking, the frame disintegrating.  The walls sag, pieces of the roof falling around me.  I try to stay balanced, dancing around the gaping holes and slipping in the dust.  I reach the window, shards of glass cutting my hands as I swing my legs out.

And jump.

I walk alone. I walk alone.