Strangers

the playlists we gave

The days passed and my week fantasy to Vegas helped just a tiny bit. Harry and I did talk and fuck when we had the chance, but he only stayed three days as I stayed four more. I was back home, with Josh's long flannel on while I was drinking wine. I was deciphering what the fuck to do with my life. I didn't know if I should talk to the man that not only broke my heart, but abused it in such a way you'll have to second guess if I had a heart after all.

Right now it seemed I didn't. I couldn't feel anything. I let myself not feel anything. I wasn't content with my life. These passed weeks I have pondered how much easier it would be to fall off a bridge, feeling weightless, until my body drops to the cold river, until the water filled my lungs; I already felt I wasn't breathing even though my heart was still beating.

I had paper dreams with him, because they crumbled in such a way that they were unrecognizable. I wanted so much to have a love like one of a fairytale. I was aiming to be a princess but instead I became a silhouette to someone I thought was my blue prince.

There were photographs of us.

I remembered each memory. The essence when the moment was alive. The camera lens captured my happiness, my puppy dog eyes and how in love I was, how in love I still am; it captured the happiness I can't get even with everything I try to recuperate it. The good side to love. The lens caught just that.

We were in New York for new years in 2009, we had bulky jackets and beanies and we took multiple pictures of that moment. At first smiling at the camera. One looking at each other. And then another of us giving our news years kiss at 12:03. The three minutes count. We were fucking around, giving each other kisses in the cheek, at 12:03 he kissed me as his lips came close to my ear and his soft voice told "I love you." Everyone in that moment was kissing and smiling but at that moment, he only existed to me.

I held the picture by a corner and turned on the lighter, my fingers trembled as the flame got closer and closer to the image. But I couldn't do it. I closed my eyes at my pettiness, feeling my stomach drop. The pictures are doing me bad, they're giving more memories.

I didn't care. I got lost in between memories and let myself feel them for the thirtieth time. In the distance my phone was playing music, How Are You True, by Cage the Elephants was playing. I didn't realize as the songs went by, my phone was playing the playlist he dedicated me. Mardy Bum. Arctic Monkeys. I smiled at it a bit. That song is pretty much ours. Us and our mardy bums; just a more extreme version.

I put away the pictures with trembling hands, and drank once again, this time getting the whole bottle.

- - - - - -

Harry's POV:

It was dark in my room. Smoking and letting the anecdote escape my lips. I overwhelmed the room with the scent, and I liked it. It was the only thing I would accept for it to kill me. I was a slave for the drugs, but I have never felt so much alive and at ease with them. With cannabis, there wasn't many of those voices that edge into my mind and dominate my being. There wasn't a heart or mind. My consciousness left me at each puff, and like this, I was at ease. I was numb and I felt like myself. Other people did not take my mind like this.

Jimmi Hendrix was playing in the background softly. The guitar made me feel like I was the actual instrument and the artist was playing with my strings making something amazing. I remembered Cathy.

When she had introduced me to Hendrix, John Lennon, and the Beatles even though I already knew about them. I remembered how excited she was when she was when she got me to listen to them as I pretended I didn't know the artists and their songs. I was from England but Cathy was naive and did not think I listened to the Beatles.

Quite honestly, I disliked the Beatles, but seeing her lips edge into a grin, while so much sunshine streaming from her bones; I listened to them.

I closed my eyes feeling the smoke around me. I didn't want to think about Cathy. She was everything I wanted, and I became everything that she didn't need.

She was sweet. Naive. She had stars as eyes and had summertime in her bones; her kisses were strawberry flavored and her laughter was like something too sweet to coexist in this world.

And I am a bittersweet madness that just wasn't for her. I wasn't the moon, any kind of light. I wasn't her sun or her stars. I was one with the darkness of the night. She was an array of sunshine and I am the coldest night in winter. The kind of coldness that you die from hyperthermia. I wanted to be her prince but I was simply a silhouette of what she wanted me to be.

I wanted to be everything she needed. And God, did I try, but it wasn't enough. The knife twists at the thought of it. Of Cathy. Of her. The only girl who I fell into love with.

All I have now is my drugs and my music for company. Flings that mean nothing. I haven't felt human since she left. I have grown unattached to all the things that meant everything. Sentimentality is the only thing that destroys you in a world like this one.

It doesn't hurt me anymore that she left. The sting that hurts is that I let all my pride and my walls for something so useless. For happiness, not joy. Happiness is a short state of emotion, joy is reoccurring and more lasting. I haven't felt it. I always felt inferior to her. I thought I was undeserving of love and all that came with it.

Love. Envy. Sadness. I don't feel those petty things. The only emotion I run on is lust.

It's like a motor I always have to run. Promiscuity is a trait I have had since I could remember. Feeding my ego, feeding pride; feeding to feel the tiniest bit alive. To pass the time. The more alone I am, the more drugs I take and it's sickening how much shit I have taken but I'm still alive. It's like God wants me to stay in a place like this; making me suffer for wanting to be with the pure white flower in his garden of people. I already know I'm just a weed out in the garden, killing flowers around me; I guess the bad weeds never really die.

The phone was ringing. The phone was ringing but I didn't know if it were true. There was always a trip that the one in the phone line is Cathy. I didn't like answering the phone when it was her. She would cry and I'd try to hang up but she would beg me to stay.

The phone was ringing. My fingers were trembling and so were my knees. I didn't know if I should answer.

"Fuck you Cathy don't fucking call me." At first I didn't feel it but I was pulling my hair, my mind was shaking and the world was spinning.

The phone was ringing and I let myself take another hit. Who do I kid? Of course I want to talk to Cathy.

The phone was ringing. Should I answer it? I don't know. I don't know.

I held the phone.

Static.

"Cathy?"

"Harry?"

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