Free
1/1.
He smokes Marlboro cigarettes behind the locked bedroom door, the windows shut so that smoke fills the room. I can taste them when we kiss. That expensive, oaky flavour.
Some nights, when he lets me, I join him in the bedroom. His skin is tight across his skeleton like a thin white icing and even when we are together, a thin white cigarette dangles from his lips, his eyes distant.
He once told me once that if he ever got me pregnant that he would punch me, hard, in the stomach.
"It’s an act of love.” He would mutter, the cigarette perched in his thin lips. He would then stub it out and roll over away from me to sleep.
I can hear him coughing and hacking at night, staining his dirty pillow with blood and spittle. He tries to cough up the damage. The damage to his lungs. His liver. His heart. The coughing isn’t enough though. It will never be enough.
Smoking will kill him. Drinking will kill him. Heartbreak will kill him.
One day, I asked him why he doesn’t stop. He drew that Marlborough cigarette away from his cold mouth and looked at me. Icy gaze. Eyes like switchblades. I tell him he can be healthy. He can be free.
His lips part, they are cracked and dry and dirty and pale. “Free from what?” he whispers out. “Even the birds are trapped in the sky”.
Some nights, when he lets me, I join him in the bedroom. His skin is tight across his skeleton like a thin white icing and even when we are together, a thin white cigarette dangles from his lips, his eyes distant.
He once told me once that if he ever got me pregnant that he would punch me, hard, in the stomach.
"It’s an act of love.” He would mutter, the cigarette perched in his thin lips. He would then stub it out and roll over away from me to sleep.
I can hear him coughing and hacking at night, staining his dirty pillow with blood and spittle. He tries to cough up the damage. The damage to his lungs. His liver. His heart. The coughing isn’t enough though. It will never be enough.
Smoking will kill him. Drinking will kill him. Heartbreak will kill him.
One day, I asked him why he doesn’t stop. He drew that Marlborough cigarette away from his cold mouth and looked at me. Icy gaze. Eyes like switchblades. I tell him he can be healthy. He can be free.
His lips part, they are cracked and dry and dirty and pale. “Free from what?” he whispers out. “Even the birds are trapped in the sky”.