Smoke
I don’t think we’re good together anymore. Her words lingered in the air, and my mind raced with a thousand thoughts of what to say, each possibility forming a new avenue, but they all lead me to dead ends.
She sat there waiting for me to respond, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. When my mind decided on what to say, my mouth would open to speaking, but the words would get stuck and land on my tongue, sitting there on the tip of my tongue, fermenting, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I was paralyzed. Bored of waiting, she lit a cigarette.
I always hated how she smoked in the house, but now I welcomed the toxic fumes as they contaminated the air and covered those dirty final words she left hanging between us.
In that moment I wanted so desperately to be able to see into the future, just a peak, a brief glimpse, so I could see her in my arms. I wanted so desperately to be given that reassurance that this moment would pass and everything would be okay.
As she sat there staring at me, I tried to maintain a stoic gaze, but I felt my eyes failing me, and my heart betrayed me, so I looked down at her cigarette to hide the sadness.
As we sat there stewing in the silence, I watched the tip of that graceless cigarette. Two streams of smoke floated away, gliding through the air, twisting round each other angelically, like synchronised swimmers putting on a spectacle for a grand cheering crowd. But there was only her, and me, and these two toxic fumes twisting round each other, never touching, only destroying everything in their path.
