Sad Girl Cigarette
And a big f-you.
The first time I saw myself, I was standing at the edge of the ocean, ankle-deep in saltwater, holding a cigarette like it was the last thing keeping me tethered to this world. I didn't smoke it. Just held it between two fingers, watching the waves gnaw at the shore. It was late. Too late for someone like me to be alone, but I had the look of someone who had never been afraid of the dark, only of what waited in the light.
And nothing ever came. And no one did either. And sometimes no one is all there is when everyone shrinks you down to a no one too. I am no longer bothered by the whether or nots of someone wanting to be my friend. Forget me nots, echoes, ashes—all just embers from hell. But they’re never as long as the pencil shaped residue growing on the end of a silly girl’s cigarette. A friend to all has gotten me to no friends at all, and isn’t that the way of it all? Isn’t that the joke of the Gods? The way of the waves. When you stand there cradling a cigarette between skin and bones, begging for the waves to take you. And they never do when you need them to the most.
It’s only when the sun tattoos the freckles on my shoulders and my mouth is open free. It’s when I can taste the salt under my tongue and the sand between the crevices of my thighs and the love of my life is kissing me in the rain that the fucking waves want to take me.
But never when I ask.
Nice, Violeta!!