weapon of change

I'm working on this piece right now for my creative writing workshop. I don't know what happened, but I just woke up this morning feeling ready to write... more so than I have felt in quite some time. I think maybe it was just the drama of this week that added water to my creative well. Anyways, the assignment is to create a piece focusing on an incident that the character avoids remembering or cannot clearly remember, working on making the scene as immediate as possible, not a memory or a flashback, but a depiction of actual moments shared by the characters. I don't know how to end it... but as of now, I think I have something semi-decent. Some parts are a bit loquacious, but I'm not too concerned. I think that should iron itself out as I workshop it.

Whatever. Here it is:

"Pathetic, no?"

She walks outside for a cigarette. It is just after four in the morning but time is irrelevant, as she has now been awake for the past three days. She is exhausted, though more emotionally than physically. And she hurts all over.

The cigarette reaches her lips, disturbing the delicate dichotomy in her mouth. It is composed purely of vomit’s bitter taste caused by entirely too much alcohol on an empty stomach and 2Cute Cherry lip gloss—incessantly applied to her cracked lips in a vain attempt to appear more attractive. The contrast between the juvenility of the lip gloss’ sweet, flirtatious shimmer and the nonsensical view of her, just minutes prior, being anything but innocent is rather striking. But it pales next to the disconcerting fact that she actually still cares enough to make an effort.

With a quick snap of her lighter, the tip of the cigarette begins to glow. She inhales the deadly salvation and at once feels somewhat content.

“What the fuck did I do?”

She tries to recount the past seventy-two hours, but it is all an incoherent mess (much like her life). She is so dissociated that even if she was cognizant of her actions, she finds herself unable to remember them as such. Her wrecked form folds onto the steps, blending in with the cold grey granite. Her skin is paled almost beyond recognition and shaking from the cold. It really is no great surprise that even on this sub-zero midwinter evening (or is it morning now?) the steps feel uncomfortably warm. She is tragically unique—the epitome of late teenage imperfection, which is inherently ordinary.

From her designer jeans, perfectly destroyed in sweatshops by workers paid next to nothing, she takes out her cigarettes and lights another.

It was never good. It was never fine. She was never happy, but neither was he. Two broken. Too broken. Two broken spines on a winding road, out past Hell. Her cigarette ashes fall to her arm, leaving a white cone of broken flakes on the unclothed and faintly scarred skin. The ash is still smothering, but she is so numb that whatever discomfort it is causing, it is completely inconsequential. She feels no pain.

She decides to be over what happened. Things happen. Mistakes are made. We are all young and reckless…and too goddamned stupid to recognize the difference. Whatever happened, it does not matter. But no, it really does matter because for her to now say that it didn’t would imply that something did matter to begin with. And no, she wouldn’t admit that now. Because everything matters.

“How did things get so bad?”

Saturday night, everything seemed fine. She thought he was somewhat impertinent—and coming from an intelligentsia fiend is a pretty decent compliment and just made him all that more attractive in her eyes. And his EYES…just his eyes…until they’ve gone and done dimmed out….

The way he played the guy she wanted him to be. He didn’t try to jump into bed with her right away. She thought he actually cared. No, cared is once again the wrong word because he did not. It was all a farce. She knows not why, but that is once again insignificant. All that matters is that she let it happen again. She fell for him and then screwed it up, as per her norm.

“What is so wrong with me? Why am I so broken?”

A third cigarette is lit, the smoke tendrils spiraling delicately towards her eyes. Vacant, they were, almost dead, her eyes still maintained the inherent ability to produce tears. And that they did, the sharp droplets dance down and caress her prominent cheekbones and are instantly dried by the constant smoke spewing from her lungs. She thinks about the scores of spiteful words thrust upon her.

“Yeah. It really is all my fault. Damn.”

She remembers a table and two refrigerators filled with Natty Ice, cheap rum and Mike’s Hard…the libations of choice for those on a budget and trying to get inebriated beyond recognition. She remembers begging for another shot to be poured in her glass and barely tasting the alcohol. The empty cans crushed and lined up next to the overflowing trash bins. Screaming along to the likes of Sugarcult’s “Pretty Girl” and having a major musical meltdown when the lyrics started speaking to her…”And that’s what you get for falling again. You can never get him out of your head. It’s the way that he makes you feel. It’s the way that he kisses you. It’s the way that he makes you fall in love.”

She remembers going out for a cigarette with someone other than the guy she was seeing and coming back an hour later, sans bra and looking extremely disheveled. She remembers meeting yet another guy in the hallway on her way back from emptying her stomach contents onto the floor of the common restroom. And how the sweat pooled off his sinuous frame, almost steaming as it snaked down towards the filthy beer stained carpet.

“Oh my God. Please tell me I didn’t…”

She remembers how she stared at the ceiling, consciously attempting to advert every fiber of her being away from the moment. She remembers waiting for it just to be over and regretting everything the second it happened. She hates the way she constantly does it…the girl thing…and instantly jumps into bed with anyone who will have her. As she pulls out another cigarette, she realizes the one truth in her pathetic life…

"I am the one your mother warned you about..."