Empty Ashtrays

I miss smoking with you, the rough exhales of Marlboro Black exhaling through your mouth into mine. I miss grabbing your arms and lowering my mouth to your skin, from the slight tease of breath to the petting kiss to the flourish of the tongue and finally to the ecstacy of the pain. I miss watching you one inch from me, detaching myself from your glory — detaching truth from lore, as if unending lore weren’t truth or hidden truth weren’t lore. I miss relaxing with you, I miss learning with you, I miss the fleeting love I felt — that fleeting love that coursed through me yesterday as I lay my arms around you, asking you — at least for that moment — to trust in me, to trust that I would never hurt you — and when you put your gray briefs back on, the love exhaled, like the glorious smoke of a cigarette, entwining into the air until it dissipated.

I miss you and I miss your face — I see your face in every movie I watch, I see your face as I hurry to stores buying cigarettes I swore I’d quit, I see your face in my bed beside me. I miss the gutless battles, the countless bottles of lubricant substitutions, I miss the grunts singing from your gagged lips. I miss being with someone, someone true to himself, someone that exists within and outside our vacuumous existence, someone that instead of containing itself within my imagination, soars into the numb crevices of my mind.

I miss that night, that one night where through blanketed windows, I kissed you. Not on your beautiful lips but on your broken body. How I worshiped your body, my tongue your devious priest. My lips, blackened from the nicotine laying praise or a trail of sacrifice from your neck down. I miss being that slave to your desire, a one-track, one beginning, never-ending battle, never-forgetting you. And for that moment, I’ll miss missing you.

Oh, boy, I miss you now when only hours have ticked, hoping that every second every message I’d get comes from you. How I wish you’d miss me too. Perhaps you don’t, perhaps you do. Perhaps I wrack my mind thinking of you, thinking of love and awkwardness or of lust and awakening or perhaps just chain smoking the snarky tears into a semi-happy facade.. I miss happiness. That last moment of just wanting to hold you and hold you. Just to touch one last part of you. You live in me and I, strengthened by the weakening virtue in you, live from you.

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CARD DRAWN

THIS IS THE TAROT CHALLENGE, a 78-day writing challenge where everyday I pick out a random card from my tarot deck and write something about, against, inspired by, based on the card by the day’s end. The works can range from poetry to fiction to drama. When the card is from the major arcana, the title of the work should be the card name. When the card is from the minor arcana, the title can be different but the card drawn should be revealed at the end.