Nicotine & The Radio

Springtime;

Loud music, exasperated and sweaty breaths, the faint scent of lip balm on a pair of lips, and a much stronger scent of the same lip balm on another pair of lips, lipstick on a pair of lips, the same lipstick staining the inside of someone else’s mind, and two types of perfume, and one type of cologne, that lace the wooden planks on the walls, and stay within them, so every movement, every inhalation in that same room brings back those same feelings, same memories thundering to the forefront of their minds.

Bodies. Three bodies, and three isolated “momentary lapses of judgment”. One body trying to be with the other two, while keeping them in two separate corners of the room, because if they so much as see each other, they’ll rip each other’s skins out. Heightened tensions, prior romantic entanglements, broken trust on two and three counts, in one pot of black confusion, deceit, and misguided poetry, concentrated into two stanzas, and boiling, frothing anger as the icing on the top of this proverbial, nightmare of a cake.

Where do I start? Where should I start? Should I make this another sad love song, or a more optimistic description of a supposed new beginning? Or is it neither? Just a true, representative sketch of a central, self destructive, protagonist condemned to an eternity of repeating the same actions, barreling towards self imposed oblivion?

The love song begins a month before the music starts, before there is any dancing, or confusion. The song is melancholic at times, adorable at times, attractive and passionate at times, heartbreaking at times, but the song always usually a ballad dedicated to the idea of a person becoming the soul narcotic someone else feeds off of, an essential fixture in an increasingly hectic life. The song is sung, nay, crooned, over soft strings in the style of 1950's swing, like auditory silk. Song sung confidently, and arrogantly.

The song, rather the happy, joyous part, filled with passion and a subtext of love ends with the mathematical representation of guilt, and a mathematical, self fulfilling prophecy. Then comes the sad part, the one filled with breaches in trust, commitment phobia related issues, uncontained confusion, two eternal, unfading, embers under the arms that are holding them up, burning the skin, with flames that quietly whisper “I adore you” and effortlessly scream “I want you to burn”. Burn, but burn with me.

Those two bodies that dance around a huge bonfire, setting fires to parts of the other body, and then themselves, and then everything they catch even the slightest glimpse of, hoping that they cause other breaks down, and admits fault, or feeling. Why? Because they’re idiots, lost in their own delusions of self importance and baseless accusations and assertions. They’re two idiots that love the other, very much.  

In this haze of double sided unrequited love, that blinds, binds, chokes and leaves them senseless, one of the two bodies sees an opportunity with a, foreign, third body, their flame once burning bright, which was only fated to be extinguished by careless splashes of ice-cold water, but, regardless. When an opportunity arises, rather, arose at that second, and the two bodies that were once miserably set on fire, extinguished, now with different bodies, their old flames rekindled, and this time, burning as though there were no tomorrow.

But there was a tomorrow. There was a tomorrow. There is always a tomorrow.

It's still spring, the music even louder, exasperated and sweaty breaths, the faint scent of lip balm on a pair of lips, and a much stronger scent of the same lip balm on second pair of lips, lipstick on a third pair of lips, the same lipstick, replacing that faint lip balm, now staining the inside of the else’s mind, and one of those two types of perfume that lace the wooden planks on the walls, irrelevant. Instead, the faint smell of nicotine and the even fainter sounds of the radio, violently clash, and paint a dark, damp picture of a contorted set of minds that made the third body “mine”. Mistakes were made, lip balm exchanged lips, but lipstick went from lip to mind, through wishful thinking, so to speak. 

The day after, there’s dead silence, nervous breaths, and a final promise to care and love one another, all out of a trip to get some cigarettes. But, after a confession of the colour of preferred liquor is made, it brings with it a stark revelation is made to these two hopeful lovers, that one out of the two shot his shot with someone else, and that led to the burning of an old and spectral flame. The other lover, with her remorse said that all he had to do was tell the girl on fire that it was a mistake, and that he would take better care of the situation, which was, at least, partially true. 

The next two days were full of uncertainty, blocked brains and hopeless honesty, that only resulted in the splitting of this metaphorical cuban link that had just been finally revived for what seemed like a long time.  

How a broken and confused heart longs for those first days of spring, the first instances of sweet, honey like dew crystallised in the leaves and grass, reflecting light and the promise of a different future, different past, with them, almost mockingly.

Studded within those moments, monuments of guilt and regret, are minarets, within which the existing, exhausting reality was present, screaming with all urgency, to exist and confront this trying time.

But,

This overwhelming overload resulted in nothing other than outstanding confusion. 

The protagonist falls into the same pattern, only to feel undying guilt that never quite subsides, until the next time, until the next dance.