In Memoriam (Part I)

In Memoriam


by


James True




    The smoke poured white as it strained from her nostrils, from her mouth, lips pursed and shaking with the fragility of a dream, of a life that's broken deep, the invisible trembling of insecurity that reaches out by physical means. Brittle waves and crippled leaves, the wind blowing through the golden reeds, an early change for an August in Fennimore. Sitting in the field with the five-foot grass and the stars so bright and the light of the moon playing off the open stream.
    "No."
    "What?"
    "No."
    The world never seems so stark and bland as when disappointment settles in, as when the eyes are glazed over by a welling of tears, and never so sad as when we fall to our fears. 'No;' the settling of my fears. She still looked so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful, with the organic tones of her skin reaching peak, with the blushing of her cheeks to the night's relentless breeze, with her lips so pale and pink as if they had never been touched. In every moment I tried to focus on anything else, anything other than the word that she said, than the way that she sat, than the staleness in her eyes, than the thought of our goodbye, and most of all how this was the last we'd share a night. I thought about the water and the trees, the dirt in the wind, the laces on my feet, the goose bumps on my skin, and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse as she shuddered to the cold and inhaled another breath of the weed between her fingers, burning orange and growing slight, embers dancing with the air. All concentrated thoughts escaped my mind, my heart beat faster as it grew so heavy, all the tension in my lungs made it hard to keep breathing, and I had to keep steady as I felt so dazed. She settled her head upon my shoulder, wrapping her arm around my own.
    "You should have never made me your happiness, Desmond. This should have never happened with us."
    The words came soft and were made even softer by the way her hand crawled into my own, by the way she was talking and the way her head fell closer to my cheek, but I couldn't hold it anymore. With the release of the pressure that had built in my chest there was a tear, another tear, three tears, four tears, all that slid down the sides of my face and into her hair, her beautiful hair, that grew damp to my own lease.

~