Cassie - January 5, 2011

   Cassie leaves her kisses everywhere. She paints those lips, which are thin and chapped, with a clean sweep of crimson. Those lips, first, tremble with the slightest wind as she walks, her hair billowing out behind her like a rippling flag. Cassie walks in the wind with the measured steps of a frantic calorie-burner, until distracted by something lovely in the corner of her eye. An old man on a bench who is wrapped in day-old newspaper. She presses those lips to the tips of her fingers and blows, the wind carrying it to him.
    Lips parched and parted with the remains of vodka turning that sweet red bitter until she licks it off. The glass that she set down softly is glinting with the sparkle of club lights and trapping her in it’s beauty. She stares, ignoring the erupting bass and chaotic mass of people behind her, a smeared and delicate print of red stained on the glass.
    The boys who try so hard to touch her and catch her with their hands before she floats away, they stand close. After brushing them off with a swift, romantic slur of incoherent nonsense, she watches their stunned and expectant expressions for any sign of understanding. She is not surprised when they stare back vacantly, their eyes heavy with the time that’s passed between them. As though these seconds have been slow millenniums- she leans closer to hand them her token, if only to humour their insatiability. She moves those lips to the side of their cheeks and breathes out a swollen, loving lung full of the precious air around her.
    The old man on the bench has retired his newspaper for a dirty, old coat. He has smiled with a fond memory each time a red-lipped woman walks past, which is often in the busy city. The bust-boy has stacked the used glasses according to regulation, but stops to admire the crude red lipstick stain on the rim of the last one. The boys stare at their faces in the bathroom mirror, only just noticing the embarrassing red tattoo on their cheeks. They wash them slowly, somehow not caring if it looked ridiculous.
    Cassie leaves her kisses everywhere, she leaves behind her own ghost.
   
The End

-Kortnee Tilson