To Die For

City opens like a chasm from reality, sucks me in, even the air is forgiving, and nothing I do here will be remembered in that separate fold of life, the other side of the creased paper. I enter the club with my friends; it's a goth club, dark, faux-dreadful, but the bar is glowing violaceous and the stranger I pass on the way to the bathroom smiles like the sunshine - E and the goth club are of conflicting interests. If my friend who's 21 buys me a whiskey and coke (it's all I can come up with, I am not experienced with alcohol), my inhibition exits with a flirty laugh, and I am dancing with whomever is finding the beat quite like I am. I am thankful for a female dance partner - admire my body without the eyes of a predator, play with the volatile alchemy of our sexuality without making me feel spoiled. I will leave appreciated, not objectified.

Thoughts along this line of thought dance in circles in my mind, and I'm wondering what the difference really is between male and female - can this pallid, flaxen beauty objectify me just as well as the hulking, thick-browed boy dancing adjacent to us? My Aphrodite, golden and tremulous sprite that clutches my hair in her child's fingers, presses her forehead to mine and her lips barely touch my own.

"Never let me go," is what she whispers. In her eyes I see 3 drinks and 5 cigarettes. The frail princess has fallen ill to the spells of substances which bewitch. A metallic, sharp and delicious spasm rolls forcefully down my chest, to my unsuspecting stomach, and crests just below. Who am I to be your savior, your holder, your arms of refuge? But in my own wine-induced haze, I feel like a God, Goddess secondary.

I am not good with words, and I suspect that this is why my lips met yours in the absence of words. But you find my actions to speak louder than words, and I'm hoping that later, I'll concoct verbal formations in my mind that match the exhilarated emotions in my chest.

My eyesight darts from side to side over your tiny shoulder. Some people are parodies of our connection - others shine as though revelatory spotlights encircle them, our equals in ecstasy with emotional verity. I want to be daring, noble, the crowning figure of romantic fantasy.

"Will you follow me?" My words. Your small nod.

Outside, we are thrust into a vortex of some kind of reality. Alright, so there's a silence, albeit the chatter of other smoking dance partners. But the city reminds us that there's a world that we live in, that forces us to sleep and rise in repeat, and we won't always be blissfully intoxicated so that we'll forget our problems and regrets.

But I see how shy you are, how shaken you are, how you can't meet my eye. I used to be you. Age taught me to hide such vulnerability. All at once I am jealous of your childlike naivete, one that I know I possess, the Lolita-like charm (even though the real Lolita was sucked into an abusive crevice - you are Lolita sans Humbert, spicy but shy and innocent in the face of that which seizes your heart and quells your raucous fancy, but that was me, that was me over and over- am I so hardened?), and I am smitten, falling, drunk, high, buzzed, strung out, everything on your genuine infatuation.

"Cigarette?"

"Yes." Your voice is so small, so sweet.

We both smoke individual cigarettes, reveling in the familiar and calming heat.

"I'm not... I'm like you... " I confess. My heart embeds itself like a knife in my chest as I see pain-tinted confusion cloud your eyes.

"I mean," I quickly say, "that... I don't know... I don't know what you're looking for. If you want the big, strong savior. I love you, right now. I mean, I love who you are right now. And I think I could really, truly love you. But there's a part of me that's like you. Small, scared, naive. Please don't think that I'm... as strong as I may act."

Can I get so lost in those chocolate eyes that stare back so that I may be reprieved from an answer? I'm so afraid of your disappointment.

"And do you think... that I too, am all I seem?" you say, gently, but with a veritable edge. I can't answer. But I know my eyes have widened. "I can hold you too. I can make you the little girl I am now. We're one... and I can feel it, as insane as that may sound. Maybe it's the alcohol, the bite of this cigarette that invigorates me, but... fuck... I feel it's true. We can be whatever we need for each other." Although a slight thread of uncertainty wove itself in and out of your words, I can tell you are as sure as you should be, as intelligent and as insightful as I need you to be. I inhale a plume of smoke, which I imagine is an opalescent orb in my chest, shining with the light and magic of every fairy tale, and I lean into your mouth and kiss you, with the lightest and gentlest physical force, but with the fiercest and most trusting passion I can muster. The smoke is expelled in tortuous rounds that circle our faces.

I've dropped the qualms of love that follows alcohol. No spoken word can touch my intellectual and romantic faculties under the mere guise of intoxication. And when I wake up the next morning, with the sight of your golden palette against an ivory pillow, and guilt and self-deprecating interrogation does not burden my chest, I know that I've prevailed. Only anticipation and excitement can engulf my senses now.