Aryan
GOLD
It's cloudy outside, in that all encompassing, fraying way. The clouds that don't have an end, or a middle, or a beginning - the type of days where the grey stretches on, and on, cold and wet and writhing in nostalgia. There's been twenty cloudy days since he left three months ago, but it's not like anyone's counting.
You add more grey in, fill in the blanks in your already empty room, wrap a new kind of cloud around your head. Cigarette smoke - nine to fill in the space his hand used to occupy, five for his bombshell eyes and fifteen for the black hole where you think his heart was.
Something used to beat.
He said - "I wanna live like I got no money," and the way his voice shaped round the unfamiliar words was intoxicating, the rich tang fading from his tongue. He hid his gold card under the ashtray, and every time you emptied it out, you'd see his name, black on gold, and you'd think about how someone from around here would never be called something so elegant.
You also remember how you couldn't afford to eat today, or yesterday, and how he bust all the money he earned on packets upon packets of cheap cigarettes because they didn't quite have the kick the higher class ones had, the ones he used to smoke. He'd always hang out the window of your bedroom, aristocrat blonde hair brushing the red bricks outside, and take drags upside down, eyes tracing the steps of worn strangers.
People watching, he'd say, voice deep and scratched from smoke, and then he'd say something unfathomable - "You can see the truth upside down," "He'll be dead in a week," "She won't make it home tomorrow," and then, then.
"I wish I was so lucky," like he hadn't been raised in a house bigger than this street. You ignore it, though, because you know he just wants to die and get it over with. You don't ask him why he hadn't done it yet, you never did, because he was beautiful and strange and so utterly cut off from the culture you'd grown up in that it made you wonder what he thought when he saw five pound notes being treated like a deity.
His tongue felt like money when it caressed yours, dry and full of hope, but it was never your hope. He was searching for something that wasn't silk or gold or stiff, curt compliments, and the way you'd stare at his gold card never quite let him forget.
You wanted to say, "I'm sorry," and "I was just so hungry," but you feel like excuses are what made him so barren. He just smiled and said, okay, and you woke up at six am in the morning and lit a cigarette and when you went to put it out on the glass of your ashtray, all you saw beneath it was stained white.
There's been twenty one cloudy days since you last saw him.
You add more grey in, fill in the blanks in your already empty room, wrap a new kind of cloud around your head. Cigarette smoke - nine to fill in the space his hand used to occupy, five for his bombshell eyes and fifteen for the black hole where you think his heart was.
Something used to beat.
He said - "I wanna live like I got no money," and the way his voice shaped round the unfamiliar words was intoxicating, the rich tang fading from his tongue. He hid his gold card under the ashtray, and every time you emptied it out, you'd see his name, black on gold, and you'd think about how someone from around here would never be called something so elegant.
You also remember how you couldn't afford to eat today, or yesterday, and how he bust all the money he earned on packets upon packets of cheap cigarettes because they didn't quite have the kick the higher class ones had, the ones he used to smoke. He'd always hang out the window of your bedroom, aristocrat blonde hair brushing the red bricks outside, and take drags upside down, eyes tracing the steps of worn strangers.
People watching, he'd say, voice deep and scratched from smoke, and then he'd say something unfathomable - "You can see the truth upside down," "He'll be dead in a week," "She won't make it home tomorrow," and then, then.
"I wish I was so lucky," like he hadn't been raised in a house bigger than this street. You ignore it, though, because you know he just wants to die and get it over with. You don't ask him why he hadn't done it yet, you never did, because he was beautiful and strange and so utterly cut off from the culture you'd grown up in that it made you wonder what he thought when he saw five pound notes being treated like a deity.
His tongue felt like money when it caressed yours, dry and full of hope, but it was never your hope. He was searching for something that wasn't silk or gold or stiff, curt compliments, and the way you'd stare at his gold card never quite let him forget.
You wanted to say, "I'm sorry," and "I was just so hungry," but you feel like excuses are what made him so barren. He just smiled and said, okay, and you woke up at six am in the morning and lit a cigarette and when you went to put it out on the glass of your ashtray, all you saw beneath it was stained white.
There's been twenty one cloudy days since you last saw him.