Fiction

I kiss your neck, drunkenly, sloppily; it’s a wet kiss and I suck a little bit as I feel your breath hitch against my lips. I plant open-mouthed kisses around your neck, and you let me, at first, until I reach your clavicle and give it a small lick. You push me away, softly, slowly, halfheartedly; and whisper my name as a warning.

I already know I’ve won.

I hum absentmindedly and focus on the red spots I’ve made with my lips. I trace them with the fingers of one hand, while my other one undoes the buttons of your polo shirt. You take my hand, the one drawing circles on your skin, and say my name again.

It sounds so pretty on your lips, love, or is that the alcohol?

I hum again, and entwine my fingers with yours as your face changes from shock to concern. I move closer and kiss your cheek, softly this time, and move down to that jaw I seem to love so much. I plant butterfly kisses along your jaw line and you sigh my name.

I’ve won, completely.

I smile against the spot under your ear and give it a soft lick. I suck that spot and feel you give in, finally. You turn your face towards me, and your lips find mine. You teach me how to kiss and how to be kissed properly; our tongues dancing awkwardly at first, trying to get to know each others’ tastes. I fight for dominance, of course, even if I don’t know what it is I am doing. I can feel you smile through our kiss; I amuse you. Your hands tangle in my hair suddenly, and you hold me in place as you teach me the pace, the taste, the feel of being thoroughly kissed by you, and the tables are turned.

I’m grasping at straws and trying to hold on to my drunken courage, but you’re scaring me with the way your lips taste. I pull away and you let me. We stare at each other’s eyes for a few seconds, your hands still in my hair, our chests heaving like we’ve just ran a marathon; and my drunken fog has lifted, while your eyes have turned molten and your lips so pink from me nipping at them.

You say my name in a whisper, in awe and surprise and I feel like you’ve seen me, truly, for the first time. I gulp, I was wrong. I’ve lost this conquest to you and your kiss, and your soft way of saying my name. This is bad. This is wrong. This is… my fault. But I don’t care anymore, so I come closer again, and latch onto your neck as I feel you groan while I lick the side of it. Your hands are on my hips this time, and my hand is inside your shirt while the other is on your bicep. I kiss you like a famished vampire, and you let me, again. 

You push me away and this time it’s you kissing me in the same spot and it’s so glorious I moan your name, and you smile against my neck. You push me down onto the sand, and I let you, a dazed smile on my face as your shirt lands beside me and my hands explore every inch of your body. You’re not done yet, still kissing down my chest and your hand slipping underneath my bathing suit top.

I bite my lip, but you slow down. Your kisses getting softer, more lingering, and I already know your lust-filled haze has lifted. You look up and your eyes meet mine. I can blame the alcohol, you have nothing to blame but your self-control, and I see you realize that. I smile at you reassuringly, trying to tell you I know what I got myself into without having to use words. But you stand and wordlessly put your shirt on, then sit beside me. I prop myself up on my elbows and look at the stars. 

We sit like that in silence for a few minutes, but it feels like eternity and an hour, trying to get our bearings. We sit like that until our friends find us, their drunken laughter reaching us before they do, and tell us it’s time to go. You need to  drive us home.

~Fin~

An Open Letter

You should be made illegal.
You should not have met me, I should not have laid eyes on you.
You should be against the law, and away from me.
You should not be allowed to be so nice, and giving.
You should not be so gentle and funny, and smart.
You should never have befriended me.

You should not look at me like that,
with your eyes half open and groggy from alcohol,
a loopy grin playing on your lips,
and mischief just waiting in the air.
You should not worry about me,
and make me feel important,
like if I disappeared you'd care.

You should not make me laugh,
and make me feel like there's life in my veins,
like I'm eighteen again with no scars on my heart.
You should not make me feel safe,
even when I've just given you the key
to get past my defenses.

You should not be able to brush my embarrassment under the rug,
like it never happened, like it doesn't matter.
You should not be allowed to make me feel at peace,
even when you're driving half-drunk down a deserted road.
You should not make me feel like you won't break my heart.

You should be made illegal.
You should not ask how I am,
if I've gotten home safe.
You should not text me back,
you should not ANSWER.
You should not take me to places
that take my breath away,
because you felt the same way when you first went.

I should not so easily have fallen for your gentle charm,
and the way you speak so softly.
I should not have let you in,
and felt your warm presence.
I should not have felt that pang of jealousy
when she put her arm around yours 
and you smiled at her the same way you do with me.

Check List

Give me someone with fire and courage, 

someone with heart and passion, 
and love.

Give me someone who sees the stars in people's eyes 

but loves the constellations in mine the most. 

Give me someone who likes to make people laugh, 

but realizes mine is their favorite. 

Give me someone everyone can depend on 

but allows me to lean on them when my defenses are weak. 

Give me someone who respects everyone and everything accordingly, 

someone alive, not existing. 

Give me someone who makes everyone feel at ease 

but makes sure I always feel safe. 

Give me someone who likes coffee and good food, 

who will take me on adventures physically, mentally, emotionally; 

someone who can find the beauty in the forests that have overrun my mind. 

Give me someone who will look at the broken pieces of my glass heart 

and make them into a mosaic. 

Give me someone who understands my love for books 

and my need to express my opinions. 

Give me someone who cares enough to listen, 

and loves me enough to argue sarcastically about the most mundane things. 

Give me someone who will laugh at my troubles 

but hold me close when my demons come knocking. 

Give me someone 

with passion, 

with heart, 

with courage, 

and love.

Familiar Smiles

There's something about a smile, the way someone's eyes crinkle or completely get lost when they do so, the child like glee you see reflected in their eyes. There's something familiar about it, something homey, something warm. You realize you have seen that smile before. You have turned away from it and blushed already, once upon another time. You see the eyes, not quite the same, not even close, and yet when they crinkle and disappear behind the smile it brings forth memories of a familiar stranger you no longer speak to.
You can't help it.
You look away as soon as the smile begins, because you can tell when it starts: the eyes begin to sparkle with happy abandon, your heart quickens. You look away, stare at the ceiling, the wall, a piece of paper, anything, just not that face, not those eyes, not that smile, not now.
They don't look alike, at all, this new smile and the first one, the one that made you fall in love and broke your heart at the same time; and, yet, it's there. Uncanny similarities making you feel things you hadn't felt in years, the heart begins palpitating as if it already knows of the huge killer crash this will end in, but does it care? No. Because it's pumping again, isn't it? And a pirated love is better than nothing, right?
So what if they're barely a shadow of the one you fell in love with? So what if they aren't your usual type? So what if the standards have fallen so drastically it makes you want to weep on the bathroom floor at two in the morning with a half empty bottle of vodka or scotch in your hand? It's been a horrible year, and they'll do.
They'll do just fine, for the moment, the week, the month.
They smile again, and you tell yourself it's nothing, you try to convince yourself it's just the memories plaguing you. It's nothing, really. It's nothing at all.
Isn't it?

Hello, Again

I saw the horrible boy who made me laugh today. I was out on the town for business and had to walk a back road through the old churchyard to get myself a cab back to the office because the Park's streets were packed with festival goers. It had been a long day, and the afternoon was not even halfway done yet. I finally got a cab right before the road turned in to the church. As I was seating myself, I saw him walk out of the double doors and turn to the direction where I stood seconds ago. Five more seconds and he would have seen me. I was relieved, at first, like I had dodged a bullet. But a few seconds later, as he began shrinking away in the distance, a heaviness settled over me.

I had half a mind to ask the driver to stop, no, I changed my mind, I need to speak to him. In my head I had already ran to him, a big smile on my face, ready and willing to continue our camaraderie as if the past two years never happened, as if he never broke my heart. In my head, I had snuck up on him and looped my arm in his, only to laugh as he would panic and push me away. He always liked his personal space, and he was never one for random touches. Then he would laugh, too, and it would be like it was before, I would feel nineteen again, alive again. He would ask me how I was doing, and I would tell him of the hellish day I was having, and the problematic people I was dealing with. He would laugh at my troubles, like he always did, and then put an arm around my shoulders, comment on my height and tell me I could handle it in the most backhanded and cryptic way possible. I would have left my cares by the road as we walked down the path he was headed and talked about movies and existentialism, and the coming elections.

But I didn't tell the driver to stop. Why risk opening the floodgates of emotions that you so sturdily locked away years ago? I watched, still, as he disappeared when the cab turned the corner, and I remembered how he used to make me laugh at everything: my stress, my problems, the characters I so loved in the book I was reading, myself. I miss telling him my ideas and watching his eyes light up with a million stars because he was thinking the same thing, and our ideas would get crazier and funnier because our cuckoo minds would meet each other halfway.

He was the thunder to my lightning, and although he judged me, and he judged me heavily, he understood. He was a horrible, horrible boy, but he knew what to say to make me angry, to make me smile, to make me feel. I was grateful for that, and had I not handed my heart so carelessly to him without his knowledge, without his consent, we may still be friends now. Because what he told me when he broke my heart would not have hurt so much. He did not ask me to love him, he did not want me to, but we love who we love. I think that was my fault, I have a tendency to feel too deeply, to love too much.

But there he was and then, just like two years ago, he just wasn't there anymore. I miss him, very much, and that, I guess, is my fault, too.

The Horrible Boy Who Made Me Laugh

I fell in love once, just once, just the one time. At least it was as close to love as I thought I would ever get, I still think it is. You see, I fell in love with a boy who had a mind full of thunderstorms, hands like roses, and a silver tongue that stung.

He was not like the sunset, although his eyes did turn molten gold in early morning light. He wasn't an Adonis, and neither was he a Hercules. But his wit was as sharp as the arrows that flew from bows in the stories of myth, and his laugh felt like the rain on a day when the sun would shine so hot, the sidewalks seemed to melt. He was a horrible person, really. Spoiled and overly self-confident, he took his intelligence and used it as a weapon. He was underhanded and mean spirited, and made me feel like shit half the time.

But he made me laugh, and that was very important for me, at the time. All I wanted was someone who made me laugh. I felt horrible about myself already, anything he said, or did, did not hurt, at least not so much. He also read the same books I did, and as a teenage bookworm in an age where the boys thought reading was uncool and nerdy, he was a Godsend. He was opinionated, and unafraid to say what he thought, which, most of the time, was what I thought as well. He made me question things, he made me question everything, and he pushed me. Well, he pushed me away in the most hurtful way possible, but apart from that, he pushed me to do things I never would have. He challenged me, literally. When I'd tell him I wasn't sure of doing something he'd say "I'm doing it, so I guess if I get it I'm going to be better than you." He didn't get it, I did. Because he told me to.

He also intimidated me, and that is no mean feat, I may have hated myself, but I knew my views and my opinions and I knew how to voice them eloquently. I could intimidate the best of them, but him, I couldn't. He'd brush it off, and laugh in my face. It was refreshing. He had scathing retort after every scathing opinion, and he hurt my feelings at least three times every week, but he'd come up and wrap an arm around me when he knew he'd gone too far. He never said sorry, the unapologetic bastard. All he would do is sit next to me on the bench, and put an arm around my shoulders, or lean on me for a few minutes, transferring some of his warmth; and for some reason, I didn't need his apologies, I didn't want them. We'd sit there in silence, with him sometimes nudging my shoulder with his, or poking me in the ribs until I cracked a smile or pushed him away. He liked when I pushed, he'd laugh and then do it again until I started talking to him.

He read my poetry, and gave me constructive feedback, he drew at the back of my notebooks, and made me feel safe enough to say what I really felt, in the language that I could express myself best. He UNDERSTOOD. I could get lost in the stories he would spin, the way we talked about books and movies, and people we did not like. Every day would find me waiting for him because for once in my life, I valued someone else's opinion over my own. He slowly started to feel like home, like a white picket fence and a small two-bedroom house. I fell in love with him. I didn't realize it then, but I was.

Needless to say, he broke my heart and it felt like a punch to the gut. I was winded. But I didn't show it. I knew, you see, I knew. I was not his type. I was the furthest away from his type. But, God, do I miss the bastard. I don't hear his laugh anymore, we don't even talk. He's too far away for that, and I've pretty much severed that connection. What was the point of remaining friends if he still made me feel like shit at least three times a week, and he wasn't there to put his arm around me anymore?

I grew up, I guess. I love myself more now, and it's taken me 22 years to do that. I'll be damned if I let some boy bring me down again.

Orange Sunsets

I've always wanted a guy whose favorite color was orange. I think it's because I am so in love with the color purple (obviously), and sunsets. That doesn't make any sense, but let me explain. See, purple and orange only look good in sunsets, and sunsets are my favorite thing in the sky. Because I'm not just saying wispy, light purple and the peach tones of a sunrise; I am talking about the flash of bright, strong orange against the darkening purple sky as the day ends, the majesty of the sun's exit, how it is all bright and dark at the same time, it ushers in the night with such brilliance every day without fail.

Now to have the color orange as a favorite color isn't really a big deal, you know? I just think it would be a nice... well I just think it would be nice. It's one of those little things that don't really matter, but if it was there, it would make you a bit happier, you know? Anyway, so, yeah, the color orange, and sunsets.

I rather do like endings compared to beginnings. I mean, if you start something, it's so much work, you lay down the foundations, you build it up, revise, attach, create, add, continue slowly, oh so slowly, so that you don't mess up. It's the same with sunrises, don't you think? It's slow, and sweet, and light, then it builds up until it's high noon and the sun is blazing above and making you sweat and swear. But with endings, oh, the ENDINGS! Aren't they just marvelous? Every single thing you have done, you have worked for, culminating in a giant blast of color only to suddenly turn black. The drama, the theatricality, the beauty of it all! And you can choose! It's either bright oranges and dark purples, and Pomelo pinks with tinges of bright yellow, or dark blues with ribbons of yellows and oranges fading into the violet sky.

I like endings. I don't know what that says about me, I am pretty sure there's a psychological something or other about this, but I don't really care and I am not inclined to find out. I just like the color purple, and the way it blends so beautifully with the orange at the end of the day, that's all.

Sappy Stories I Can Only Tell Strangers

You know how there are stories you can tell your mother, and only your mother, but there are also stories you can only tell your closest friends, and then there are stories you tell no one about because... they're yours. But once in a while, there are stories you can only tell strangers, because, let's face it, there are times you just need to paint a picture of something beautiful to someone who has no idea who you are.

There are days when the stories you've told the people close to you no longer seem as colorful as you thought they would be. It's there, in the little movements: an eye roll with a knowing smile, the deep sigh as you begin your story, that thumbs-up sticker after you type the extremely long chat, the halfhearted "Okay, yeah," after you've told them a different story about the same person, and the agonizing feeling of being a broken record and an annoying friend.

So then these stories go away, or at least you make them go away, for a while. You brush them under a metaphorical rug and put a coffee table of practicality on top of that rug to better mask the bulge of stories hidden underneath. But like all things, the truth comes out, sort of.

Let's say you're on the train, the bus, the local public transport, whatever, or even sitting down alone at a restaurant or cafe at lunch break, and suddenly you see your "friend"from high school or college, maybe even elementary school, who knows, or maybe it's that one girl you kept smiling at in that old place you used to work at. The point is, they aren't your closest of friends, they aren't really friends enough to be called friends, but you know each other. You know each other well enough to tell half-truths and one-sided stories to each other. 

These are your familiar strangers, the ones who will ooh and aah at your stories, the ones you choose to tell, the ones you paint with such vibrant color. These are the people who will only take what you give them and ask no questions, they will not care enough to ask, nor will they care enough to remember. But will you care? Nope. Because all you really needed was SOMEONE, ANYONE, to talk to, to tell your hidden stories to. Someone you won't see everyday, someone who doesn't KNOW the entire story of your life, someone who will listen and laugh, and walk away after thinking of how adorable it all sounded but will forget it the next second.

I thank the Lord, or whatever being you believe in, for these familiar strangers, and maybe, you could be one of my familiar strangers, too.