There's glass in the sink and flower petals on the floor and you can tell that everything happened all out of order, flower petals slipping through your fists and falling to the floor as you wince and inhale and try to collect yourself because-
F I R S T
you are dizzy and going-on-fifteen as the spinning summer world brings fading dusk over fiery tangerine, and when they collide it's like water on hot pans and then the steam comes, which is maybe why the house is filling up with thin smoke that creeps up the peeling wallpaper, and it's all blue light like every music video you stayed up watching in sixth grade, so you lean your head back against Beautiful Brown Eyes as she tells you she feels very big and small all at once, and so you hold her hand as the world spins, because she has always been the one to keep you in one place long enough for your heart to stop beating out of your chest.
You don't know much except your skull feels thick and the pulsing of the floor from the heavy, clamoring bass has stopped meaning anything to you as it all fades to static and wooden floors and Her, always Her, even at a dumb party in an empty room that you don't care isn't yours, because everything is drunk and thick and sickly sweet, so if she's your everything, then it doesn't feel so bad, because even if summer feels guilty after long days and faded nights and staring at her, it's not so bad if you can just fade into the smoke and the light and the pounding music coming from the speakers, because you're here, and now, and you're convinced that five red cups and a contact high are what it takes to discover the true meaning of life and the wonderful everything, because nothing feels so bad anymore.
You don't remember the throwing your head back into a laugh as you hold out your arms and declare that you are the Earth, and you don't remember her saying that maybe this whole 'drinking' thing isn't really so bad, because she's feeling pretty okay, but you do remember leaning into her a little, (you're drunk, it's bound to happen), and you do remember her lips brushing your cheek, (it was an accident, she's drunk), and you remember lifting her head and bringing your lips to her, (they just felt so soft, you're drunk), and it's all hot, buzzing air and her lips on yours and closed eyes and thumping bass that starts to sound like airplanes flying overhead, leaving traces of a great Permanent, the white from the engines that always has been there, long enough into your memory for you to stop asking why.
Her hands are on your thighs and the world is soft and beautiful and your mind, for once, is clear and questionless, because of course, this is happening, it makes perfect sense, you'd be surprised if anything else was happening. Her body is warm and nostalgic, a well-lain map that you can trace all the streets of, familiar and welcoming, and there's nothing you'd rather be doing, because it all feels so right, and you can't muster up the energy to challenge basic facts.
You feel different under low light and loud music and a sheen of sweat and liquor; light and easy and agreeable, the constricting of your chest and the anger pulsing through your blood into bruised knuckles far and detached from dreamy June nights like this, and there is a certain freedom to her hands in your hair and her lipgloss on your jaw without a hint of remorse that is enough to make you squirm by the time you are awake because-
S E C O N D
she tells you that she doesn't remember anything from last night, as the sun is high but the sky is low and the adrenaline is sinking because it's all about coming down from a half-literal high, now, as everyone clears out of the house, the buzz of yesterday evening paled into dusty air in afternoon light, which means that it's all over now, that foreign world of a beautiful honesty, and through the pounding of your poor, busy head and the grimace on your face, you know it's time once again to return to a bittersweet reality, like stepping back into a world you are used to, except you do not return a hero, like every English assignment swears you will; no, you just return with more to worry about. (Like how she made you feel.)
And you try and ignore it, even though the one thing you remember from the translucent, flickering night, that one important thing- she doesn't remember it. So it must mean something far different for her, maybe.
You want to be drunk again.
And you are, by the time it is numb and cold outside, but not enough to keep the asphalt from shining wet and black under a half-hidden moon, with reflective oil spills in parking lots that stay near the front of your eyes, and as your worries start to fade away, that's what's on your mind, the glistening black next to melting snow that's not so flawless on the edges anymore.
You keep thinking of parking lots under streetlights that whirred by as you leaned your head against the cool glass of a cab window, even when she grabs your hand and spins you like you're hers and leads you into an empty room, and you understand exactly where this is going, and some kind of fire almost catches in your throat, but you swallow hard and taste cheap vodka, so you shrug it off and let her smile into your collarbone again, like you halfheartedly swore you'd never let her do again while downing a bottle of water and an Advil after the first time.
You're a fucking liar and it doesn't feel so wrong as soft, wet snow falls, so you let it happen again, ('let' is the wrong word, there's nothing passive about the wonderful way this makes you feel), but you'll learn to regret it within months because-
T H I R D
you know that it's getting pathetic, now, and you hate that, honest, because that's not who you are, but you spend nights praying for the next time a party happens and you can let the world bleed out like diluted ink and be with her again.
It's another night of dizzy, dumb prayers being answered and you swear this happens every time, because you've given up on trying to avoid it, and now you're just focused on living in the present and avoiding the fact that there's going to be some kind of fallout, eventually, because you know just as good as anyone that nothing lasts forever, so you just inhale and find her tongue in your mouth as you lie on a wooden floor that feels just as foreign as all the others and cross your fingers behind your back.
To tell the truth, you're still half hoping you only like it so much because you're drunk when it happens. But the fact that you try your hardest to avoid thinking too hard about it at all when you're sober probably says more than your half-hearted explanations ever can.
But it is not in a stranger's bedroom with a faraway mind and drunken sweet-nothings and her fingers woven in yours like dried out flowers tied together that you realize you love her, because instead it is, and always will be when-
F O U R T H
you are pacing forward on breathing streets under a darkness that you doubt will ever fade into an orange-cream sunrise as pin-prick droplets of condensation cling to the sides of your face, the tangles of your hair, the fibers of your clothes, seeping into your pores under each streetlight you pass, and you're waving the broken glass of a liquor bottle out of your sweaty, bleeding palms, and you swear that it is now, and here, three blocks from her apartment, drowning in fear and heartache and brutal honesty, liquor on your lips instead of her mouth, rain in your eyes mixed with salty tears that stay in place like they've been well trained- it's here you really understand (or maybe accept) what's happening, and how you feel, and that your life can't always be drunken physical contact that she never remembers by the time the day breaks again.
And you'd like to pretend that you're drunker than you are, but you know you're not. And since it's only you that you're lying to, you get that it's pointless. Because you might have had a little to drink, but it's mostly the personal sentiments that leave you clenching your fists and biting your lip and breaking bottles and then finally stumbling to her house like a raw nerve with adrenaline coursing through your body once again.
Being at her window is half surreal and half familiar, but you know you've got to do this, now, before you lose your nerve. You're pounding, probably, and when she gets to the window, she's going to ask you what you're doing there, and tell you it's late, and inform you that you're being awfully loud.
When she opens the window, you know, she's going to smell the liquor on your breath and ask you if you're drunk and you might lie but perhaps you won't. And you are possibly going to enter, and she is going to look at you funny, and then, if you can muster the courage of a drunken teenager with nothing to lose, you will kiss her, passionately, deeply, honestly, and maybe it will say everything it needs to say. And she will take a step back.
And that's where your vision ends. Because even if you know her better than you know yourself, you don't know how she will react. And that's the scary part.
But until she opens the window, you are suspended in this inky unknown, oblivious and terrified and stagnant.
But then she opens the window, and somehow, it gets harder. But regardless, you go through the motions.
She takes a step back.
And then, something miraculous happens. Sober, she smiles.