History painted these walls, as if the wallpaper was woven from pieces of the past, intangible emotions suddenly palpable like they might just wipe off on the brush of your fingertips. They'd surely whisper the tales of your pain when you were gone, like ghosts of your past self hidden behind stained brick and tear-soaked sheets, calling out with the recollections of the love you were leaving behind.
The rain pattered the roof in a melancholy drizzle, like a sadness loomed throughout the atmosphere and the density of its grasp exhausted the very droplets that hadn't wished to fall. It was a rag wrung out, dripping down with whatever it had left to spare, seeping into the cracks and crevices of cobblestone lined with the sins of the day. It painted the windowpane in the teardrops that had yet to escape from your very own eyes. Ducts stalled, but the heavens open wide. Streaks of shed moisture racing down to oblivion, as their trails made the glass distorted and glossy, pathways to be forgotten as soon as the afternoon dried up.
It was not a vengeful rain, as the heavens ceased to shake, and it was not a boisterous rainstorm that blew down Watery Lane, as an all-consuming silence echoed in the void. It whimpered in the absence of mid-morning light, but the rain drummed against the aged brick and pavement below without a single effort made to be heard.
It was a silent cry, the slipping of teardrops down the moistened cheeks of the angels above, turning cold in mid-fall as they collected the chill of the autumn's nipping air. But it was a soft rain, a solemn misting of lost droplets with no home to go to, as they glazed a city enveloped in smog and an intangible sensation of sorrow that seeped from its pores.
The daylight was scarce, as it endeavored to illuminate the bedroom with all of the brightness it had to offer, but its futile efforts merely cast a dim shadow over the space. An exhale of morning light clouding over the hardwood panels, like the faint fogging of dew over a rolling countryside at the first sign of dawn.
It wasn't enough to shed warmth through the captivating bite that radiated within the four tight walls, the late autumn weather finding peace within the cavities of worn brick and peeling paint, of loose screws and rickety windowpanes. Creeping in through an open current and saturating the atmosphere in the turning tide of chilling temperatures.
It wasn't enough to eradicate the years of pain that lingered in this place, a degree of cold that the winter season would never quite know, as it resided beneath the very foundation that this bedroom had to offer. The failing light would never be enough to breathe warmth into this space and make it feel as whole as it had been once before. No amount of light in the world, even if the burning sun itself shone through the glossy window glass with all of its might, could never thaw away what truly froze this place.
For the memories were cemented in amber crystals, like frozen icicles that were never bound to melt, they were time capsules encased in a beautifully deceptive tomb.
The only thing the faint signs of daylight managed to illuminate, was the dancing flecks of particles that always lingered in the air. Scarcely seen in the darkness, but alive and wild when the bright glow of a marigold sun or a citrine flame flickered upon them. They spun within the space as though they were intwined in a waltz, dust and evidence of life and the very essence of your presence left behind within these walls, dancing freely through the stale air.
Cigarette smoke and strong cologne, melding with jasmine and the crisp scent of the falling rain, saturated the merry particles. Oxygen turning rich with the unmistakable aroma of two beings weaving together, their scents blending in a fashion that should've clashed against the senses, but rather enriched and awakened them with each and every inhale.
You wore the bite of his smoky Sweet Aftons in the lace of your dresses and he'd surely carried the sultry notes of your perfume along the collar of his woolen black coat. The spice of his cologne, worn and transferred to the sheets cocooning your frame from a fitful night of sleep, met you in the morning as surely as the clinking of sheet metal and the rise of the evasive sun. The sweet shea in your soap calming his senses after a long night, stumbling into the bedroom to discover frothy bubbles soaking your flesh for comfort in the bathtub, rather than the need to cleanse bloodshed harshly like he was used to.
