notsodeadpoet

[notsodeadpoet]

Aftertaste

The script I wrote for my exam

Theme: the phenomenon of dissolution

[notsodeadpoet]

Coffee and Cigarettes

The story I wrote for my exam

Theme: the phenomenon of dissolution

I sat at the café waiting for Ethel. I ordered a coffee and watched the people around me. It was a nice summer's day. I saw couples, birds, and dogs. There was a water fountain across the square. Kids were playing in it. The sun shone hot on my face, and I regretted not bringing sunscreen. I could feel my face growing red, a sunburn building up.

The waitress came with my coffee at the same time as I spotted Ethel. Her long gray hair flowed behind her when she walked, like an extension of the smoke from her usual cigarette. Her heels clicked loudly when she walked. 

She barely looked at me as she sat down. She didn’t smile, just started talking about her new boytoy. She told me everything, even when I didn’t ask. She just couldn’t help herself, like it was a gift I was supposed to be grateful for. She talked with her hands, gesturing with her cigarette like it was punctuation, flailing ash all over the table.

I raised my cup to take a sip, but there was ash in there too. I put the cup back down.

She killed her almost finished cigarette by dropping it on the ground and stepping on it. Smearing the tobacco on the cobblestone. She grabbed her purse and rummaged through it. Taking out a lighter and a new cigarette. They would kill her one day, I thought.

She took a cigarette from the crumpled pack and placed it between her lips. Her fingers moved with practiced ease as she struck the lighter. She cupped her hand around the small fire, shielding it from the wind. The flame caught, and she inhaled slowly, deeply, until the tip glowed red.

“Can I have one?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away. She just looked at me through the curtain of smoke rising from her lips. She looked like a dragon.

“You don't smoke,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I know.”

Her eyes almost judged me for asking as she looked me over. It felt as if she was trying to decide if I was worthy. If I even knew what I was asking for.

Then, she reached into the pack again. She passed me a cigarette, letting it rest across her open palm like an offering.

I took it and mimicked her movement. I placed it between my lips. The filter felt dry, papery. She sparked the lighter and held it out to me. I leaned forward into the flame.

I breathed in.

Smoke hit the back of my throat. I coughed, nearly dropped it. But I held the inhale, felt it claw its way down. My lungs prickled, tingled. It was a dirty feeling, like the first time you had sex. I thought of Ethel’s lungs. How they must look now, after all these years. Coated in soot. Black and brittle. But she exhaled as if it was nothing.

She kept talking about her boytoy —his cooking, his abs, the jewelry—  but I wasn’t listening. I watched her instead. The way she held the cigarette between two fingers, long and yellowed.

She took another drag, deep, like she meant to drain it in one breath. The cherry flared hot again. Then again. Then again. She didn’t pause. Just smoked it straight down. Greedy. Her lips kissed the filter like it was something precious.

Then the cigarette was gone.

But she didn’t stop. She lifted her hand back to her mouth, pinched fingers closed around air.

I blinked.

A thin wisp of smoke curled up from her fingertips. Not cigarette smoke. Her fingers. They were burning.

The fire started at the tips, small at first like the lighter’s flame. I expected her to yelp, to scream, to react at all. But she didn’t. Her voice didn’t change. She kept talking. Her hand kept moving as she spoke.

The fire grew.

When she raised her hand to her mouth again, I watched her inhale from her burning fingers. She breathed it in like it was the same cigarette, flesh dissolving beneath the flame. Her skin peeling away and thudded onto the table in scorched, blackened lumps.

Still, Ethel didn’t stop talking.

The fire spread fast. Her whole arm now ablaze. I looked around at the people surrounding us, and they seemed frozen, just as shocked as I was. But no one said anything. We just watched.

The fire spread over her chest, down her back, to her other arm, to her legs, up her neck. Her already ashen hair caught fire, and it looked like a burning log.

Even as her face started to melt, she didn't stop talking.

Just a cloud of dark smoke was left, but it disappeared in a gust of wind. I looked down at my own cigarette. I had forgotten about it, but I still held it between my fingers. It had burned down to the filter.

I put it out by pressing it onto my plate.

“Excuse me,” I said as the waitress walked past. I held up my coffee cup.

“Could I get a refill?”

[notsodeadpoet]

It's so weird to be able to say that I'm over you and feel that I actually mean it...

i am a romantic person, but i dont think that i will fall in love again. not soon.

[notsodeadpoet]

Done // Free

It's funny, isn't it?

One drunken text,

That's all it took to shatter the illusion.

You never cared

The jokes weren't funny, they were cruel

The actions weren't love, they were bait

Stringing me on.

Just one text to rewrite my story.

You never loved me.

I was a background character in your life.

You never looked back.

02:32 AM.

Was I crazy?

Were there ever something between us?

Seen 6 hours ago.

Finally. I am free of you.

-a.s.

[notsodeadpoet]

— v, from “excerpt from a book i will never write” (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

[notsodeadpoet]

Flies .✿*

I long for the day i've turned so cold that flies will lay eggs in my eyes, and the maggots will eat my brain — because then I can finally stop thinking about you.

-a.s.

[notsodeadpoet]

*sigh*

I’ll close the door but i’ll never lock it. I’ll shut the blinds but never the window. I’ll let go of you, but not of my love for you.

[notsodeadpoet]

Ctrl+Alt+Delete .✿*

Why do I still think of you?

Still look at your house when the bus drives past?

Still imagine you’ll sit beside me,

and look at me with those eyes?

Why do I still hope our old classmates will message you when they see me,

tell you I’m here,

And you’ll come running,

Just for me?

Why do I still scan the streets, the bars, the faces

Hoping yours will be there?

Why do I still believe our eyes might meet

And you’ll cross the room?

Why do I still think my life is a movie

And you’re the love interest?

Why do I still want someone to find me beautiful?

Why do I still believe in love?

I wish I could erase you.

Control-alt-delete every memory.

Backspace the way I fell so hard.

Forget the greatest love I’ve ever known

because love isn't butterflies.

It’s aching.

It’s a very cold bed.

It’s a constant reminder that I am alone.

And honestly,

Now I think,

I would rather ache from never knowing love

than carry the weight of loving you alone.

-a.s

[notsodeadpoet]

the mental image of you is both a blessing and a curse, a desire and a sin.

[notsodeadpoet]

A Love Letter .✿*

I don’t want to love you anymore. It physically hurts. It makes me feel like shit. If you felt just one percent of what I'm feeling right this second you’d topple over and clutch your chest. You’d think you were having a heart attack. I think you’d think you were dying. Because that is what it feels like. It feels like my heart is being torn apart very slowly. It feels like someone is pressing their nails and fingers into the flesh of my blood pump watching the red liquid run down their hands before they pull it apart like it was a fruit. Do you like the feel of my pulse? Watching every little thread of the spiderweb that is my feelings break before they pull further. Stop. You have pulled too far. I can’t keep breaking for you. You are torturing me and if I died and they opened my chest I’m sure your name would be engraved on my bones. You are stuck in my body. Please stop. Take it back. When the worms eat my brain they will learn your name and the outline of your face. I don’t have any more for you to squeeze out of me. Please for the love of God, stop. Stop…

Unless.

Let me squeeze your heart as well. Please, I'm begging you. Let me squeeze just a tiny bit. I’ll be careful I promise. Just until a drop of the ichor that runs through your veins runs hot down the back of my hand like my tears run hot down my cheeks. I miss you. Just until a little bit of it is stuck beneath my fingernails. Please. I need it, please. This is a cry for help. Help me. I need to feel your skin under my fingertips. Hear your voice. See your face. Talk to you. I need you to give me something in return for all these silent years of yearning. I feel like I deserve it. I deserve love and yours is the only love I want. Please. It physically hurts. I want love. I want to be wanted. By you. Only you. Specifically you. Can’t you see that it fucking hurts? This bed is too big for just me. This room is too cold because the heating doesn’t work. Come heat me up. I’m cold. It feels as if you don’t want me. I need you. I miss you. It fucking hurts. Do you remember my name? I don’t want to love you anymore. I hate you. Are you cold for me too? Please, god, come back. Why can’t you let me go?

-a.s.