(no subject)
I take in a drag and then exhale. The mirror fogs and the smoke clears. There I am. I examine the hairs that reside between my eye-brows. Therein lies charm, I've been told, with a kiss to the skin underneath the canopy of dark follicles. I hate them, though.
I haven't shaved in weeks, yet not much has grown. Patches here and there. A mustache not yet a mustache. A unit not yet complete. Semper fidelis, I've been told. All things come around, she says.
My lips are moist. I particularly am fond of them in the morning. Their shape is undisturbed. Their coloration is ripe. They are full and ready. I happen to enjoy the cigarette between them, by the way. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Below my bushy brows my eyes are taking refuge. They are surrounded by a grave, sullen and sad. My eyes, however, are alive. Their liveliness just can't be seen. They're thick and dark, like a cup of Turkish coffee. I have no reservations about living, for my consciousness can be endlessly peered into, I've been told. She stares hours and hours reading my mind.
Another puff, the mirror coughs.
My reflection isn't the same as the me that stands before it, though. I know what I see in the mirror isn't me, but simply what the mirror wants to project. You see, mirrors have minds of their own. They aren't so bold as to completely deceive you into projecting what isn't naturally you, but they tend to add or leave things out. Something's missing this time. It isn't noticeable, but I know. She sometimes recommends that I add or lose a quality the mirror projects. Naturally, we all do what the mirror says, anyway.
I leave the small, porcelain everything, bathroom and part the mirror with a cloud. I sit down next to her on the damp bed placed in the middle of the barren room. A light at the opposite end of the bed's foot illuminates her skin and creates a lively shadow on the tarnished wall behind. Her breathing is heavy, causing her thin cotton gown to flow with the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes are moving rapidly beneath her delicate eyelids, covered in fashionable soot. I reach out for her dark hair, tied back in hopes of keeping every strand out of her field of impossible vision. But, I, the intruder of her world, pay the duty to loosen a few strands and impeccably place them on the side of her warm face. She'll scold me for it later.
I lay down next to her body, too afraid that if I don't in time, she'll crumble and be blown away into the vastness of the universe, becoming one with many others and not with me. Never with me. I gently grasp her hand, getting a feel for her youth in the ripples of her skin.
I exhale smoke rings into her pouting and drooling lips. They pucker and then grin. At least, I think they grinned.
Her hand in mine, I whisper, as if uttering these words would have gained me the sympathy of the world. But, no. Nothing of the sort. The rain still pitter-patters against the window. The darkness still expands into infinity, only being disrupted by the light from bulbs and signs that are desperately trying to be validated and have their existence acknowledged. I wave at them with a blink.
I say to her, "will you marry me?"
"Maybe," she says with a coldness only she could produce.
"You know, I have always loved you," I reassure her.
"I know."
"So then, why won't you marry me?"
"Because," she sighs, "it's still too early. This love is still not ripe enough. We have until eternity to find each other over and over. We have eternity to be alive and in love," she says, turning to me.
She out stretches her hand and places her petite thumb over my eye.
"You know I have no tears to cry," I say, staring with the other eye into her calm expression.
"I know. Maybe if you cried, though, things would be a lot different. I just can't cry, either."
"I know."
And then she moves in closer, placing her head upon my bare chest. Her head is light. It is empty and drained. So is mine.
I flick the cigarette onto the window. Small little sparks scatter about like miniature fireworks in celebration of something grand. Something monumental. A new age. A victory. People gather around and spectate the grandiose quality of explosiveness. Their hearts flutter, smiles abound. To me, though, they represent the end. The end of a cycle. The celebration of the end and the beginning of a new end.
I stare back into her peaceful, resting, and angelic face. The only thought that crosses my mind at this moment is the purity of what my eyes behold. Is what I see the truth? Is this the person whom I love? Does she love me?
Could it be that this is just a mirror taking the form of reality?