Come Home
for so long
It was a small, overly plain room. Four walls. Three windows, opposite the door. The door is only slightly open and it is polished in a deep red wood stain. If you lean up against it, you can still smell the pungent paint; faint like a faded memory. The walls are matte and slightly sticky. They are the color of the cream he puts in his coffee Sunday mornings. The color of the bleach in his hair. And, if he remembers right, the color of all the moments in between the moments.
The walls and the comforter on the bed have picked up all the forgotten scents. Stagnant glasses of day-old wine and bottles of Jack (which had once sat on the bedside table and supplied endless morning and mid-afternoon drinks). The menthol cigarettes Adam used to smoke when he was nervous or working (which he shouldn’t have been smoking anyway. His voice was too pretty to ruin, but there was really no stopping Adam). The sheets, though changed and washed countless times, still stink like sex and tears.
Tommy just leans against the doorframe. His head is swimming from lack of oxygen and heart. He is tired, exhausted really, and he can’t quite feel anything yet. Not that he ever really did.
The windows are all closed tight and it makes the air in the room stuffy and difficult to breathe. The curtains, however, are pulled tight and open. The sunlight wafts in and captures dust motes pirouetting and floating on some leftover traces of smoke. It was weird, how Adam always insisted on the curtains being open. So that people outside could “watch them love each other” (that’s how Adam had put it anyway). And during the night he would point out all the constellations and what they meant and how he once knew this guy who was an Aquarius who dated a Libra, or some shit. It never really made sense to Tommy, but he didn’t care. He liked listening to the way Adam spoke. How when he was excited he squished all his words together and forgot the syllables and the meanings.
The room, though only big enough for the twin bed, table, and a closet filled with worn leather, still retains all the old sounds. The silly I Love You’s (which Tommy never knew if they really meant something or if they were only said to fill the silence). All the times Adam would go on and on talking about how pretty Tommy was (he would guess that that was only to fill the silence, but time after time, Tommy really started to believe him). All the times Tommy talked nonsense just to forget everything else. Old moans and sighs still echo off of the ceiling.
He feels stupid and even a little used (even though Adam never meant to use him). He sits down on what used to be Adam’s side of the bed. The pillow still smells like his shampoo and the cover smells like his come. He finds a glass of wine on the floor by the bed. It’s only a couple days old, even though it feels like months have passed. Tommy takes a drink of it. It’s old and stale, but it still makes him think of Adam and his lips. Soft and dampened with alcohol; he always tasted like wine and smoke and glitter. Rock ’n’ roll. He always tasted like fresh sex. Heavy and hot on his tongue.
The room is tiny and suffocatingly boring. It could belong to anyone. Four walls and three windows and one door. It’s all a little too much for him now. So, Tommy gets up and just closes the curtains. He doesn’t want people to witness the misery.
The walls and the comforter on the bed have picked up all the forgotten scents. Stagnant glasses of day-old wine and bottles of Jack (which had once sat on the bedside table and supplied endless morning and mid-afternoon drinks). The menthol cigarettes Adam used to smoke when he was nervous or working (which he shouldn’t have been smoking anyway. His voice was too pretty to ruin, but there was really no stopping Adam). The sheets, though changed and washed countless times, still stink like sex and tears.
Tommy just leans against the doorframe. His head is swimming from lack of oxygen and heart. He is tired, exhausted really, and he can’t quite feel anything yet. Not that he ever really did.
The windows are all closed tight and it makes the air in the room stuffy and difficult to breathe. The curtains, however, are pulled tight and open. The sunlight wafts in and captures dust motes pirouetting and floating on some leftover traces of smoke. It was weird, how Adam always insisted on the curtains being open. So that people outside could “watch them love each other” (that’s how Adam had put it anyway). And during the night he would point out all the constellations and what they meant and how he once knew this guy who was an Aquarius who dated a Libra, or some shit. It never really made sense to Tommy, but he didn’t care. He liked listening to the way Adam spoke. How when he was excited he squished all his words together and forgot the syllables and the meanings.
The room, though only big enough for the twin bed, table, and a closet filled with worn leather, still retains all the old sounds. The silly I Love You’s (which Tommy never knew if they really meant something or if they were only said to fill the silence). All the times Adam would go on and on talking about how pretty Tommy was (he would guess that that was only to fill the silence, but time after time, Tommy really started to believe him). All the times Tommy talked nonsense just to forget everything else. Old moans and sighs still echo off of the ceiling.
He feels stupid and even a little used (even though Adam never meant to use him). He sits down on what used to be Adam’s side of the bed. The pillow still smells like his shampoo and the cover smells like his come. He finds a glass of wine on the floor by the bed. It’s only a couple days old, even though it feels like months have passed. Tommy takes a drink of it. It’s old and stale, but it still makes him think of Adam and his lips. Soft and dampened with alcohol; he always tasted like wine and smoke and glitter. Rock ’n’ roll. He always tasted like fresh sex. Heavy and hot on his tongue.
The room is tiny and suffocatingly boring. It could belong to anyone. Four walls and three windows and one door. It’s all a little too much for him now. So, Tommy gets up and just closes the curtains. He doesn’t want people to witness the misery.