Cigarettes and Starlight

Oftentimes when the stars are shining bright, my face follows suit. Well it’s only for a second – just long enough for my cigarette to light. And after I suck in the sweet smoke, I'm momentarily alright. I blow it out and from my view here on the ground, my smoke combines with that of the home on St. Kelly street. I suppose they have a nice wood burning fireplace that they take good care of.

Oftentimes when the stars are shining bright I get visions of my life before all I did was sleep through the days and smoke cigarettes at night. My heart used to go through a war every time I had one. Unseen forces would punch, kick and tear at it until my internal battle drew salt-laced blood. The tears drew solemn paths down my cheeks and nestled their way into my stained black tee. But wars don’t really happen over barren lands devoid of life. And my heart feels much more akin to a dry desert now than any lush grassland.

I like being awake at night, though. It feels more real than the daytime. More accurate to the real state of things. During the day I pass busy businessmen and hurried students, folk chattering on phones and sharing lunches of scones. But right now, at night, there's a feeling of overwhelming insignificance. As I walk these empty streets, my peace only occasionally broken by the flickering headlights of a run down car, I feel as I am. Small. Sunlight’s depiction of being normal is just a farce of circumstance. It isn’t real at the end of the day. It’s just a big ball of gas that flicks its rays over to our lovely earth. At night I can experience the universe as it naturally is. Darkened and still.

It's a girl, by the way. Yeah, I’m pretty original. One great girl who left my life threw me into a continuous loop of nihilism and despair. Because life was just so great with her and is so bleak without her.

I take another puff of my cigarette and blow it onto a graffitied wall. Apparently the artist thought that telling people to love more would solve something that's wrong with this world. I wish I had that amount of faith in simple gestures.

I get distracted pretty easily. One second I'm admiring street art, then the next I'm watching a mouse scurry from a little hole in the pavement into a different hole, this one in an abandoned house. Even in the dim light I can tell there's dried blood on a nasty piece of jagged wood jutting out from the hole the mouse is hurrying over to. I also see a hairless scar on the mouse’s back. There’s a story of continual pain here somewhere, I’m sure of it. But all I see is a stupid mouse that cuts itself as it runs into a hole.

Pain. It’s not like I wasn’t in pain while I was with her, though. I’ve gotten past those lies now that she's gone. We abused each other in different ways, we got attached to each other a little too quickly and allowed our young selves no time to grow independently. And now, a part of me is truly missing. She took it with her. How selfish of her. It’s not like she can use it. And here I am, left with a piece of her that all I can do is look at from a distance.

I pass by a homeless man tripping on something or other. He looks damn happy to be on it. His flaky lips are drawn back into a grin that threatens to crack them open in one big line, and the smile reveals a set of corroded teeth so blackened with decay you’d think you were looking at some work of body horror. He laughs giddily into the air. He laughs like a little kid as he hugs himself and rolls over onto the floor.

When I was a little kid everything was great to be honest. I played video games and hung out with friends. I ate pizza at birthday parties and got away with doing nothing all day. I was on the path to such an average life, maybe working at an office or being stuck at a restaurant, begrudgingly going into management but still having people to care for. Then I met her and she took my life away. No, I gave it right to her. I put it in her hand and she grasped it so gently. Then she squeezed a little tighter. In the end it was a mix of both. She caressed and crushed in the same breath. She perfected the mixture of dependency and poured it down my willing throat. It’s like smoking cigarettes. Only figured out just how fucked up it all was when it was already too late.

I continue onwards and begin to run out of things to introspectively connect to my past. The silence of the night is only broken by my light repetitive footfalls which reminds me of nothing from before my loss. I was never alone when I had her. Even when she left me feeling like dirt, at least I felt. And at least I count on her to apologize and make it all better again.

At last I finally arrive. As per usual the black steel of the gate has been locked tight, so I toss my cig and go around the big metal fence to the back. My feet crunch the leaves of the ignoble tree who saw fit to redden its children for their death. I stop in front of it and look up. Hairless and thin, the cowardly oak stands only a foot taller than the gate. As I climb its brittle trunk it occurs to me how odd it is that people view these things as gentle. They’re unmoving, tall plants that let their leaves fall and die in a perpetual cycle of decay.

I reach the tallest branch and make a leap for the gate, barely getting a hold on the top and bashing my chest painfully against the steel beams. I exhale suddenly and pull myself upwards, cresting the top and slipping over much too quickly.

I land awkwardly and hard, knocking my head against the dirt and reawakening an old ache in my back. But I rise mostly unbothered nonetheless. Physical pain is really nothing too serious at the end of the day.

I take the normal path, passing Sarah Winthrop, loving mother of three. I pass Evan Nguyen, tragically taken in a motorcycle crash, gone much too early. I pass Stephanie Smith, survived by her husband of forty-three years. And then I come across you. Or, her. It still feels like every thought I have is addressed to her. Maybe it’s because it still is. Because despite everything I say and wish, I still hope that she can hear my voice and see my life. Even though she’d hate what I’ve become – a mockery of a living being, a man who wakes to sleep and sleeps hoping he won’t wake, my love for her… my obsession for her still wants me to be seen.

There’s so little of her left now. No flesh to touch. No thoughts to hear. Not even a word exchanged about her day to day. The world moved on. I wish she knew just how quickly she’d be forgotten in death. Maybe she’d have lived a bit differently.

I brush my fingers across her gravestone. CASSANDRA POLYNEUX 2006-2025 DEEPLY LOVED. That's all that remains of her on this earth. That, and the rotting body below. But that won’t be seen again. This is what she is now, a cut of engraved granite.

I sit in front of her and watch the stars. They’re shining bright above all this mess that is the earth. Above the injustice and pain and love and hate, the stars indifferently live their lives unbothered by the goings of men. My gaze lowers back down to my girl and I can’t help but frown.

We used to have this little playful back and forth about whether she or I were worse at keeping promises. She would name a dozen or so I’d broken and I’d have to accept defeat, a slash of guilt across my heart remedied in a moment by her forgiving words and gentle kisses.

But I think in terms of importance, I’m much better about it. Sure I would promise to wake up on time, or be consistent at the gym, or whatever inane bullshit that I thought was important at the time. But you…. She made a promise that I don’t quite forgive her for breaking. She promised that she wouldn't do it while I was at work. So imagine my surprise when I walked in one night to blood-splattered bedsheets and the death of a girl who might as well have shot me with her.

I get a notification on my phone. It’s 5:30 AM. I’d better get home and get to bed before the sun rises. Because I’ve kept my promise.

I still haven’t watched a sunrise without you.