Cigarette Smoke

I could tell it was autumn, because that sound of crumpling leaves couldn’t be mimicked by anything else and there was that familiar fire-wood smell that no other season could possess. I dragged my feet through the coarse grass, past the benches where students sat smoking. I closed my eyes while I breathed in that autumn smell and cigarette smoke. “You’re not breathing it in right,” you laughed. I gave you an innocent smile and rolled over a little in the grass until my head was on your shoulder. “Yes I am.” I protested. He said, “I don’t believe you.”

I looked over to the benches, expecting to see him sitting there with his legs crossed, constantly pushing the hair out of his face. He moved the hair from where it had fallen over his eyes and looked at me. “You have to get it into your lungs.” I turned away from the benches and kept walking across campus. But the autumn air was still around me. I don’t know why, but the feeling around nighttime always made the season unmistakable. I looked over to where leaves had stuck through blades of the rough, dying grass.

Sitting in the grass, we both had cigarettes in our hands, even though I did not smoke. When I breathed in deeper and held my breath for a few seconds, I exhaled with a cough. Your face was spinning when you laughed again and I felt dizzy. The unexpected taste and smell that was trapped in my throat was overwhelming and I coughed some more.

I had once hated the smell of cigarette smoke, but now I found I did not mind being around it. As I moved between the benches and the sidewalk, the smoke that still mixed in the air began to settle. I moved more slowly, just to breathe in the remnants. I may come to hate it again one day. I always said how I hardly know myself. You said something to me, and whether I couldn’t or wouldn’t say it back, I did not know. I just kept taking drags from that cigarette and watched you for a reaction.

I suddenly realized that the puffs of white that had clouded around my vision had begun to dissipate. Now that I thought about it, I had hardly even noticed when I walked past those benches and the smoldering air blew across my face.

The smoke from your cigarette seemed stale as it blew across our faces and I thought about how the bitter taste not only seemed dead, but of something that was never alive. When I got to my class, I tried to shake the smell of cigarette smoke off, but I knew for the rest of the night that smell would linger. It had already settled into my clothes and become part of me.

Casting Shadows

The low-lit sun

cast shadows over our bodies

ever since the purples and yellows were swallowed whole,

and the world tilted as it brimmed over

with silk petals.

Nothing reached us but the soft hum

of feeling numb and shadows were cast on our bodies.

When we reached our hands up into the air

we felt nothing,

but we didn’t care, because we had fallen as well.

Tipped over into the stretching abyss.

And as we looked up toward the broadening sun,

there was none.

Only the world,

yours and mine.

Dystopian Setting

          The sign on the road had a battered look and where the rust had given way, the words freedom rain were sprawled clumsily in bold, red paint. Even the misspelling of half this phrase did not distract from the way the intense red had dried, sliding down the unmoving board, as if wishing to be free of the sign itself, before it became trapped there permanently.
          Its dripping red blood was merely a mark to others, and seemed to glare at those who passed, desperately wishing that freedom would actually rain down upon it, to wash away the stain of unlikely belief that its defacement promised.
          Signs lied, just like people. It was only a reflection of the world in which it resided. The earth in which it was trapped.
          That sign in the road, with its bloody red soul, oozing hopeless life, a trick, for all those willing to believe.
         That hope existed, out in this part of the world.

Welcome To My Blog

So, I'm not so great at technology. I probably only use the Internet for about four percent of the ways it could be utilized (i.e. email, facebook, and music), and I don't really know anything about "blogging". But I really wanted to get some of my writing up for people to read and get feedback on. So, in honor of Lewis Caroll, these are my six impossible things, not that I know, but that I am going to try (although probably not all before breakfast):

1. I will admit to people that I finally made a blog.
2. I will try to keep up with this blog despite work, classes, and procrastination.
3. I will (fearlessly) post sincere displays of my writing.
4. I will try to post once a week.
5. I will not get too frustrated by all the technology involved and give up.
6. I will defeat this "blog-thing".

Most of what I write is lengthier (which is another reason I wasn't drawn to the idea of a blog at first), so I'm just going to post some blurbs and flash fictions while I'm getting started to get a feel for things.