i'm sarah and i call myself a writer. i guess you can be the judge.
lost soul(s)

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I’m old enough to know things; things like not to touch a hot stove, to separate the whites from the colors in the wash, to always use a turn signal. I’m old enough to know that coffee can keep a person alive, that a good night’s sleep is something of a fantasy. These are things I’ve learned, some from observation but most from experience. I’m old enough to know these things and more, just like I know that if you kiss me, it doesn’t mean you love me.

But here I am, clinging to you, breathing you in, my lips constantly seeking yours, and it’s easy to forget the things I’ve learned. It’s easy to pretend I never learned anything in the first place. Especially as you pull me down the dark street, both of us giddy with adrenaline and warm beer, rambling about getting lost together forever in this small city. When we stop under a streetlamp, you kiss me, and I’m frightened by my own happiness,  terrified of this small piece of perfection that’s foreign and fantastic and tragically finite. A piece of fleeting perfection, your hands in my hair, promises pressed against my neck by gentle lips with good intentions.

I’m old enough to know that this isn’t forever, that you don’t love me, and that perfection never lasts. When I’m with you I forget these things I’ve learned, but I’m sure in due time, I’ll be reminded.

We’d share smoke with each other in a dingy basement bar, your hands cupped against my cheeks as you exhale smoke and I inhale you. You always added a whispered secret — let’s go, and I followed you. Up the stairs we’d stumble, laughing and giddy from the high, nothing but lips and teeth and hands, more stumbling until we fell together into the backseat of my car. Now I don’t share the smoke, it’s mine, the high is mine too, but it’s a lonely high. You’re there, just across the table, untouchable now. You’re not mine — I exhale, pushing the smoke as far as it will reach. You watch it riser higher and higher, sucked into an air duct — our eyes meet, just for a second, and you inhale. It’s too late for that though, the smoke’s gone,

but I’m still here,

still breathing in you as you exhale me.

I didn’t want to admit it, at first, still don’t, sometimes. The sheer power of attraction, not fatal but almost. I thought I wanted you to care, to feel something more than just raw lust, but the feelings were lost among teeth marks and soft gasps and the rustle of sheets and your hand in mine and then you did (care, that is) and I — I wasn’t expecting it, I had convinced myself I didn’t really want it, that I was satisfied with what we had. I took as much as I could, as much as you gave and tried to take more, but you’ve never been very giving and I tried to convince myself I was okay with that too. I spent a lot of time convincing myself of things I didn’t want to feel and spent even more time trying to convince you but — it wasn’t enough, not even close.

People you sleep naked with and then don’t speak to for days at a time shouldn’t be able to exist, let alone make your chest do the things it’s doing. They’re not allowed to waltz in and out as they please and make you cry without meaning to and then kiss you to make up for it. It really shouldn’t be possible to be so attracted to someone so completely idiotic. It’s not fair that his hair looks good, always, even if he has just woken up and breathes his morning breath all over your face. It’s not okay that his hands give you goosebumps and the words he whispers in your ear give you tingles down to your toes. And he certainly is not allowed to kiss you mid-sentence. These are rules. 

But there are worse rules to break.

We weren’t careful enough, and maybe that’s why I’m sitting here right now wondering where you are. Not careful enough, I guess, but with you I never had to be careful - never felt careful was something that needed to be real. You were a little reckless and a lot lost and it wasn’t so much the thought of fixing you that attracted me as it was the idea of you breaking me down. Recklessness was new, shiny - a concept that never had attracted me so much (where are you now?). Recklessness, taken in tiny steps like a child learning to walk. Strolls through the rough part of town at odd hours of the morning and drives out west that lasted for hours and sitting in the backseat, counting freckles and passing a bottle of bad-tasting liquor between us. Progressed to wandering fingers that couldn’t seem to touch enough bare skin and lips pressed sloppily against my forehead. Then you scared me, pushed the envelope, with hands knew what they were doing (even when I didn’t) and teeth left marks that didn’t quite hurt. A different kind of recklessness that goes back to primal human instinct (where are you now?). Thinking back, I guess we were too wild, too young, too wrapped up in the concept of being immortal.

Or denying we’d ever face death.

I replay the moment too many times to be healthy, until it becomes hazy and almost transparent in my mind, as if I’m remembering it so hard I’ve rubbed away the details. It’s all I’ve got (not true, I’ve got you). But that too shall pass, so I’m working hard to remember everything. Your stupid hair sticks up everywhere (soft when I run my hands through it), you hover just for a moment before we kiss, suspended in time like you’re savoring the moment. The scent of you lingers on my clothes like cigarette smoke or something worse, something more permanent. And I don’t mind. But some things, some things I hate that I can’t forget. The way you exhale, letting the smoke slide lazily out of your mouth as if you just don’t give a damn (casual smoking, you called it, like in Adventureland). Bloodshot eyes hold me in an unsteady gaze, shaking hands, not mine, yours, paired with slurred confessions from the high. Apologies drowned in breaths that smell of cheap booze and Marlboros. “Don’t go,” the words are small, soft, float on a fragile breeze, unlike you. Your hand slides into mine, fingers flexing into a perfect fit.

“Okay,” I say. I can’t forget.

I like the way your breath,
it mixes with mine, and how
your teeth scrape against my lip
in a way that doesn’t hurt.

I like the sigh that flows
from your mouth to mine,
never touching fresh air because
we never gave it a chance to. 

I like the uncontrollable shivers
you send down my spine
when you laugh into my ear (your chin,
it’s ticklish, an Achilles’ heel that makes you mine).

Fumbling hands trace patterns
across freckled skin,
followed by steady lips, warm and soft,

I like hum that escapes your lips,
reverbrates against my throat
calm and satisfied and sleepy.

Fingers draw illustrations across skin,
lulling me to sleep.

I like this.

(I like you) 

Death is but a song, they say, that is merely unsung because nobody knows how to sing it until they’re there. Until they’re dead. I know a few songs and some of them sound like death, but most of them sound like love, which is a song a lot of people think they know how to sing but really don’t. And that’s the most tragic thing, I think. Because love should be a beautiful song, or maybe it shouldn’t be a song at all. Maybe it should be a hushed gasp, a breathtaking surprise. Or it could be the soft, low hum of a satisfied kiss and the soft rustle of sheets and the smell of coffee made specially for you in the morning. I don’t know anyone who knows how to sing a love song, but I know a lot who’ve tried and that counts for something.

I know a boy who sings a song of himself, a song of a lot of things, he’s the only one who sings it. It sounds a little like death and a lot like sadness and sometimes makes the staccato sound of laughter. I tried to sing his song, and it turned into a love song. But I don’t know how to sing a love song, so that boy went right along singing himself, leaving me behind.

I don’t know much about singing, but I know a few songs that will tide me over until I learn how to hum death’s sweet melody (or the soft, soft soprano of love).