Tongue Tied

The dust was flying through the sun streaming through the window as she tipped her bed to the side. It slid out like it wanted to be found, all orange and dusty, faded because of the time she had forced past. She didn't remember anymore why she kept it at all, and the way that it had begun to deteriorate, it seemed as though the world hated the way she was then almost as much as she does now. The noises of the room were hot and sticky, and her fingers felt their way onto the pages easily, muscle memory, like seconds ago she tucked it underneath her sleeping body, tears streaming down her face. The pages fell easily, all worn and over-worked, limp and flexible, an old pair of shoes that have molded to the shape of your walk.
She flipped through, her eyes scanning through the words she used to use, her lips stringing into a smile for the way that her mind had attempted to find solace in the middle of the inky circles and coffee stains.
But her heart couldn't take the way your handwriting filled up the middle page. She could see it all so clearly, the way that you held the pen with your eyes closed, writing out of your mouth instead of your mind. She never let anyone touch that notebook before you. Not after you either.

"For every day that you want to be my first cigarette, I want to call you bella. Every night."

She remembered why she kept it all these years. With a sad smile, she slid it back under her mattress to be found again someday. Until then, she would hold your words like a prayer and hope that you might come back to prove it all true.
She couldn't believe you, but she couldn't believe either that you'd lie.





Thus she could neither live without you nor with you.