"She would have broken that winter into ten separate snowflakes of seasonal joy, if it meant him staying till the converse shoes fell off his feet."
Look:
He was winterish blue eyes and an autumn scarf dressed in an stupid pink summer sweater that made no sense on a spring day. His shoes were converse, the kind of the skinny intellectual who had just enough money to buy one pair of decent shoes. She never really liked skinny intellectuals, yet did find herself considering them sometimes, in the way she considered coffee that was tongue scalding (horribly and without excuse).
It is odd then, that she still doesn't regret his monsoon flavoured kiss, the kind that made your tongue bleed with its passion, its heat.
Understand:
He drew in uneasy catches of breath as he snored in the heat of the summer night, nights when she would stay up and listen to cars that passed by, pretending they were a waterfall instead of the cold harsh truth of metal against concrete, just so she could sleep as soundly as him.
She took his breathing for granted.
Deny:
He spent hours lost in the dry unending silence of his typewriter, of his word making, and yes, even of his long walks that become longer everyday. Autumn, like his autumn scarf inspired him, he insisted, forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep, forgetting to drink; forgetting her.
All for the secrets of cinnamon perfume and plum lipstick that he was always covered in when he returned from these long 'walks'.
No wonder he would never hold her until he washed his hands when he returned. They had been too busy holding the curves of a frame too delicate to be hers.
Break:
He left his autumn scarf under the broken little bed when he left with a waif of a girl, her mouth covered in plum lipstick. She chose to forget it there, or else her lungs might collapse when she saw it...and she couldn't afford to forget to breathe.
Even if breathing seemed like a luxury now.
Fall:
She still hates the rain, the way it reminds her of how she will never be cinnamon flavoured or wear plum lipstick or waif like enough for him to kiss again.
Her mouth is too soft and thin, her scent too seasonal, her bones too big.
She still hates the rain because there is something of a dark epiphany about watching your life fall to pieces like droplets in an open window and doing nothing at all to stop it.
