𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧

Memory Or Nightmare?

[Dreams are in Carmen's POV]

   Fuchsia walls, the white couch, blacklights on the ceilings. The metal pole in the center of the room.

   The smell of nicotine and tobacco wafting through the air, carried by the potent perfume of whiskey, that disgusting poison!

   Music on the speakers, in my ears, in my head, sickening.

   The laugh. The goddamn laugh! It once put butterflies in my stomach, now it makes it churn.

   More voices. . . . More voices? Who? Why?

   There she was, on that white couch. In her lap is someone else. Not me. Not me? No, not me. . .

   The room is spinning. Or is it my head?

    I've given up a lot for her. Why? I don't know. I do it all blindly.

   Would this have happened if I had stayed with . . . ?

   The scar. It burns on my arm. A reminder, as she called it. It hurts more now than it did when it was first cut into me.

   Dazed, mind hazy, scar on fire. Anguish engulfs me.

   Why am I never good enough?

*^*^*^*^*^*

"Sccrrrinsch"

*v*v*v*v*v*

   Carmen bolted upright in her bed. Sweating profusely, she whipped her head around around to look at the window.

   Nothing was there.

   It was just a nightmare. That's what she always told herself. But it was also a memory.

   The digital clock next to the bed told her it was three in the morning. Exasperated from the dream, Carmen flopped back into bed. Dream alluded her for an hour or so, and when it finally came back, it brought another nightmare with it.

*^*^*^*^*^*

  
   The little studio appartment in New York. It's walls are still ivory, an oddly nostalgic reminder of the flower I killed.

   Beauty on the walls; college degrees (hers), amateur surrealistic artworks (hers), pictures of her at her book signings (hers), shelves laden with the books she'd wrote (hers).

   Where was she? She'd left a long time ago. And who else was there to blame but me?

   Blurry Polaroid pictures sit on the coffee table of the appartment. Why were they blurry? Tear stained.

   And who's fault is that? Well, mine.

   She wasn't perfect, by all means. But she loved me, in the more wholesome, sweet way. I'd known. And I used her. But why? I keep asking myself that, never able to formulate an answer

   At the time, I would've rather been in the fuchsia room. Not the ivory one.

   Her soft hair and sweet-tea brown eyes still haunt me. The memory of the subtle, occasional country accent slipping into her voice still makes me cringe.

   Such a delicate flower. And I'd stepped on it. All for what? I'll never understand. And neither will she.