Lib[re]
1.
A ribbon dancer, twirling with salmon-colored tails in the wind; or a child in summer, blowing bubbles out of a plastic circle. Diary, don’t you know, she is free. Curious and careless as the summer breeze, beams of the horizon kissed her cheeks. Days were finally hers to own, proving that sacrifice can be soothing. Her bond was now gone, a half-broken anchor, disguised as a relationship with a half-empty vessel was set loose in the waves of time. Her eyes set upon the crystal sea, seagull feathers falling from her flapping wings as the shores of (his) story, faded in the briny mist.
2.
The sunrise reflected against the phone screen propped next to the soaked pillow, light scattering across the thin layer of skin that separated his mistakes from his mind. Awake. Already drained before daybreak, the current in his elastic veins carried alcohol and emotions throughout the night. He pushed the pillows off of the edge and searched the mattress for his phone. A light. Her name. The static letters provided the boy with enough visibility to see his faults.
“Fuck”.
Laying flat against the springs, he stared at the revolving fan and began piecing together the illusion from the night before.
Bar.
Dance Hall.
Hallway.
Crimson walls, crimson floors, white columns, black dresses. A meeting ground for the moral-less and the lonely, and he happened to be there. And she was too. Obsidian lips curled around the rim of a frosted glass, as she reminded her reflection what it meant to be beautiful. How long had it been since he tasted her lips? As the inebriation settled in, his rationality sent one final message to his soul. The sculpture in front of him, may have been crafted by the same hands, but it was not the Athena he once worshipped. Her frame faded into the shadows, leaving him alone with the image of his former lover.
3.
The joint pressed between her lips, igniting her passions once more. How easy the smoke dissipated, like shadows, like dust, like feelings. Each day carried her farther, lazily drifting along the banks of time.
Was their love a fairy tale, a story to be told to drowsy children?
As the thought ascended with the haze, she realized that the dream she once held degenerated, forcing her to settle. The nights spent on the couch, the countless lunches, the small talk that polluted their phones; what did all of it really mean, if she was capable of continuing without it? Essentials…she repeated to herself, taking another pull of the fresh joint.
The Nuclear Cottage 