edenjane
01-09-2009, 02:53 PM
First off, this is the first thing I've written in some time. I was trying to focus mainly on imagery, of both the physical and emotional. Please let me know what you think.
I sat in the light brown dust of the dessert in my dark jeans, black jacket and salmon colored flip flops. I was already filthy, having laid down for a moment before considering the insect population with which I was sharing the side of the small mountain. I rested my elbows on my knees and stared out at the city lights. They had never seemed beautiful to me before, nothing involving the place where I lived had, but then I had never seen them from this angle.
Natasha slid her lower body through the dirt to move closer to me. She handed me a pipe with a little pot in it, although most of it was cashed. I hadn’t ever really been interested in marijuana after the fascination with it five years before during my freshman year, but seeing the few hot embers surrounded by piles of black ash brought out an unexpected sadness. I shook my head and handed it back to her as I pressed my lips together.
“You doing alright?” she asked; a hint of potential laughter in her throat. She always had the promise of happiness on her tongue when she asked how someone was, as though she were already working out a strategy to bring that person out of any bad state of mind.
“I’m just a little tired from the climb.” I said chuckling softly. The mountain we were on was attached to the parking lot of a high end hotel and while the climb to where we sat was less than twenty feet, it had been fairly steep and lined with various thorns and needles, not to mention quite a challenge in flip flops. “I can’t believe how pretty everything is from up here,” I said, “I hardly believe its Phoenix.” I rested my forehead in one of my hands and sighed softly.
“You’re thinking about him.”
It was a statement, not a question. She knew me too well to have to ask. My head began to fill with heavy fluid-soaked thoughts at the mere allusion to Troy. My brain couldn’t seem to decide whether it was my flaws that ruined the relationship or the fact that Troy was a worthless son of a *****, but something in me knew it had to be one of the two. I let my mind briefly seduce old memories of sugar soaked kisses into showing themselves for a moment or two. This, of course, only made me feel infinitely more heart broken. I held in and then let out a breath deep enough to reach the center of me and closed my eyes.
“His name rhymed with toy and boy,” Natasha said matter-of-factly, “so there wasn’t ever a way it was going to work anyway. Just think of him as someone who was fun for a while, but turned out not to be good enough for you. Besides, now you know the kind of person you’re too good for so you can avoid that type from now on.”
She smiled as if to say “There, problem solved.” I grinned back and laughed, trying to hide how artificial it felt. These situations seemed less complicated for Natasha. In her mind people were either worth her time or they weren’t, and the moment anyone crossed from one of those categories to the other, they were either invited into her world or cast out of it. I never saw her react adversely to the latter, and I allowed myself to believe that she really had the strength to remove people from her life without caring. I did this to attempt to convince myself that I too could one day form such protective emotional calluses.
We sat amongst the large rocks and small cacti for a while longer and spoke of everything we could think of that didn’t involve relationships or men. Many words were used although nothing new was said, and after an hour, in an implied and silent agreement, we both stood and began down the hill, which proved to be an easier feat without flip flops than with them.
I sat in the light brown dust of the dessert in my dark jeans, black jacket and salmon colored flip flops. I was already filthy, having laid down for a moment before considering the insect population with which I was sharing the side of the small mountain. I rested my elbows on my knees and stared out at the city lights. They had never seemed beautiful to me before, nothing involving the place where I lived had, but then I had never seen them from this angle.
Natasha slid her lower body through the dirt to move closer to me. She handed me a pipe with a little pot in it, although most of it was cashed. I hadn’t ever really been interested in marijuana after the fascination with it five years before during my freshman year, but seeing the few hot embers surrounded by piles of black ash brought out an unexpected sadness. I shook my head and handed it back to her as I pressed my lips together.
“You doing alright?” she asked; a hint of potential laughter in her throat. She always had the promise of happiness on her tongue when she asked how someone was, as though she were already working out a strategy to bring that person out of any bad state of mind.
“I’m just a little tired from the climb.” I said chuckling softly. The mountain we were on was attached to the parking lot of a high end hotel and while the climb to where we sat was less than twenty feet, it had been fairly steep and lined with various thorns and needles, not to mention quite a challenge in flip flops. “I can’t believe how pretty everything is from up here,” I said, “I hardly believe its Phoenix.” I rested my forehead in one of my hands and sighed softly.
“You’re thinking about him.”
It was a statement, not a question. She knew me too well to have to ask. My head began to fill with heavy fluid-soaked thoughts at the mere allusion to Troy. My brain couldn’t seem to decide whether it was my flaws that ruined the relationship or the fact that Troy was a worthless son of a *****, but something in me knew it had to be one of the two. I let my mind briefly seduce old memories of sugar soaked kisses into showing themselves for a moment or two. This, of course, only made me feel infinitely more heart broken. I held in and then let out a breath deep enough to reach the center of me and closed my eyes.
“His name rhymed with toy and boy,” Natasha said matter-of-factly, “so there wasn’t ever a way it was going to work anyway. Just think of him as someone who was fun for a while, but turned out not to be good enough for you. Besides, now you know the kind of person you’re too good for so you can avoid that type from now on.”
She smiled as if to say “There, problem solved.” I grinned back and laughed, trying to hide how artificial it felt. These situations seemed less complicated for Natasha. In her mind people were either worth her time or they weren’t, and the moment anyone crossed from one of those categories to the other, they were either invited into her world or cast out of it. I never saw her react adversely to the latter, and I allowed myself to believe that she really had the strength to remove people from her life without caring. I did this to attempt to convince myself that I too could one day form such protective emotional calluses.
We sat amongst the large rocks and small cacti for a while longer and spoke of everything we could think of that didn’t involve relationships or men. Many words were used although nothing new was said, and after an hour, in an implied and silent agreement, we both stood and began down the hill, which proved to be an easier feat without flip flops than with them.