Cigarette In The Gutter - November 30, 2010

 "You’re like a cigarette in the gutter.”

    That could have been the last thing you said to me, it could have been our last transpiring words. It could have something I pondered for days and analyzed down to a complete, complex, science. Then I would have simply deemed you a label of some sort, something demeaning. Perhaps I would have just called you a bitch and went on with my life. Those would be our left terms.
   
    Thanks to a moment, things did not end this way. I saw in your face what you’d really meant. No resentment or rage; you were longing, pitying. I should have known, you were a cryptic lover. A cigarette in the gutter… the cigarette you breathed in, that filled your lungs with satisfaction. That was killing you softly. The cigarette you dragged to it’s end, you reluctantly flicked to the ground; in the gutter.

    You boarded the bus with your bag in hand and never looked out the window for a parting glance. I could only be hopeful that the stench of cigarette smoke would linger on your skin, your clothes, long enough that you’d not forget me.

-Kortnee Tilson