Chianti and Cigarettes

I. We drank Chianti from porcelain mugs.  Mine bore an Irish blessing--yours was decorated with a Chinese proverb that warned of things to come.  We sat awkwardly by the window and I couldn't meet your eyes.

I never could bear the judgment within them.

You looked away from me then, perhaps realizing the futility in your attempts for normality, and I longed for a kind word, anything, but instead of begging, I watched the fire crackle in the hearth.

It was all too late.




II. The cigarette was burning down to the filter as I filled my lungs with the same blackness you roused in me.  Your eyes stared blankly at the wall--this was the only time I could look at you, when your eyes were dull like the butter knife on the kitchen counter.  I wanted to speak but what could I say when your presence made me overflow with too much guilt?

I took a drag and thought of days lost to the ashes, days made of discarded cigarettes and bottles of wine left to sit too long.  

Like the Chianti, we were too far gone.  We drank the future down in porcelain cups until the past was all we had left.  




III. Sitting beside you on the bed--for it was neither yours nor mine anymore--I wanted to do things differently.  Let me undo the past and the broken glass that litter the kitchen floor.  I would go back to the days of Chianti and cigarettes and toss them out the window, taking you in my arms—but you never wanted to be there in the first place.  

I lied, I screamed into your dreams.  A fresh bottle of Chianti sits on the kitchen counter and the ashes are gone on the wind.  I lied, I screamed into the din of the street traffic.  It wasn't too late to wait a moment, a minute, a fragment.  We can rewind and we'll bring out the porcelain mugs, start again.  

I lied, I lied, I lied, and it's not too late--

But you were already gone, your suitcases on the stairs and a hairpin left abandoned on the dresser.