[pre:d55f70295d]Fire Lighter

It’s not like I was surprised by what had happened. I’d been expecting it. Nonetheless, I don’t know what’s going on in the world anymore. It’s been weeks since my world went from white to black.

I didn’t think I’d be so affected by your leave.

Things are quiet now, everything’s gray. I completely lost touch with reality in the aftermath. I stayed in bed for a long time. All I would do was stare at the ceiling and trace paths through the grooves with my eyes. Eventually I had to go to work, but even then nothing was really normal anymore.

I’m starting to recover.

Like yesterday, when I got home, I realized what a mess our-, I mean, my apartment was. Clothing was scattered all about the room, dirty dishes sat wherever, the refrigerator was empty. Yeah, I haven’t been eating.

I picked up a wine glass from the floor in the living room, and noticed the giant stain of red wine in the carpet. You know, from when you threw it at me in your fit of anger. The stain is now an ugly brown.

I don’t know why I’m upset. I knew it was coming, I even counted down the days.

We both knew. We were both mental psychopaths, and everyone knows crazy people shouldn’t live with other crazy people.

Even so, I miss you.

But…

I have to move on, like you have. You won’t even so much as glance at me in art class anymore. I’m sorry if I freak you out with my occasional eye-darting in your direction. The thing is, you’re just so beautiful, and I like to draw you instead of that naked model we’ve had all week. I don’t draw you in color. I draw you in black and white. Sometimes I would sit there and wonder if that’s how you were feeling too. You know, like that without me there was no more color in the world.

I really doubted that though, and while I drew you I saw that you were thinking more about the model than what color your life was.

Something I know for sure is that our color when we were together was bright red, because you know as well as I do how passionate crazy people can be.

I decided to clean up my apartment today, and get my life together again. You were very thorough in your leaving. You took absolutely everything that was yours. It was as if you had never existed. Reality told me you were real, but the voices in my head tried telling me you were a figment of their imagination. Then lo and behold, I found your red lighter out on the fire escape when I was watering my neglected, now dead, plant. I don’t even remember what it was suppose to be, it was so shriveled up.

See what you did. You killed my plant.

I don’t know what I was thinking, probably that it wasn’t real, but I stuck my finger in the flame. You can guess what happened.

I can’t keep this lighter, it reminds me too much of you. It brings back the memories of those lazy days we’d sit out on the fire escape, while you took a long drag, and we watched the colors of the sky melt together at dusk.

So here I am now, at your front door, staring at you staring at me. I can’t keep this. I have to give it back.

Don’t stare at me like that.

C’mon, take it back. I’m holding out my hand with the lighter in my palm. Take it, damn it!

“Keep it.” You say.

“Take it back, now!” My voice cracked.

And so your hands gingerly pick it up, and drop it in your back pocket.

Good, now I can leave. Yet just as I was about to turn, you grabbed my hand and spun me back to face you. Your fingers lightly traced over mine, and you had this thoughtful expression on your face. You kissed the finger with the burn on it.

Oh no, I can’t do this again.

You must think of me strangely now, but I had no choice but to run.

I miss you, but not enough that I can’t move on.[/pre:d55f70295d]