AM I IN LOVE WITH YOU OR AM I JUST LONELY?

(el sueño)

the sky was conquered by night and overthrew the day. the planet was spinning slowly and the ash of cigarettes weeped in the sapphire sky.

she was leaning against an old silver cadillac, she was swelling in the tropic of capricorn. she was shoved in between men around her with a lousy smile on her honeysuckle face. the guys around her with lit cigarettes between their teeth, the rolled paper and nicotine screaming as it wasps in the burning city night.

and my legs carry me across the street towards her and she looks at me with that half smile and her blouse midway unbuttoned. she's wearing the sparkle around her neck. she blinks and my eyes speak "follow me", my words stuck and stuffed into the back of my throat.

she breaks from the clump of men oozed in cologne, smoke and aftershave. i leave the mahogany door open for her. she walks in to the dark room with a green bed and clutter all around the place and the shadow of the stench of burning malboros licking the walls and sticking in the air. the diffused beams of moonlight peering through the creamy curtains.

i dont speak, i cant crochet the syllabus together. i haven't seen her in almost six months. and i look through the many drawers and the nooks to find something nonexistent. the cosmic girl is still standing by the wooden door. the room shining enough that i can see her and the color of her white shirt and dark jeans.

"you know, im very disappointed layla."

her voice splattered the silence. my body feels like it is in an anti-gravity room. i turn to look at her. her outer space beauty makes my heart want to jump out of my ribcage and my spine twine and my brain fall out of my skull. she looks down, then our eyes meet. i blink.

"you dont say anything and we haven't seen each other in months." she blinks with her accent coating her words like glitter. her cashmere mouth and pearl teeth leaking.

"im sorry." i release, i feel like im floating. "i missed you."

she smiles.

"i missed you too."

she steps closer towards me. her collar bones cutting her radiant décolleté. her syrupy face edged softly by the kiss of nightlight.

"i feel like we have a connection." she confesses with her rosewater saliva. she steps forward and i step backwards and the back of my knees meet the bed and i stumble onto it.

"we do." i can hardly pluck the words from my stomach and swish them through my teeth. she steps closer to me and i take in the lunar princess.

she sits next to me on the bed our legs dangling from the end. she blinks with ethereal eyes reflecting the rings of saturn, the constellations of the whirlpool galaxy in her tongue. i struggle to remember if i breath through my mouth or nose as she inches closer to me.

we lock eyes for a galactic-year. her hair breaks into pieces within the moonlight. i feel a gravitational pull to her and she whispers

"im so attracted to you,"

like stardust.

and she reaches for my cheek

and my hands meet her side gripping her blouse.

"i've waited so long to kiss you."

i breathe into her lips before they meet mine.

they feel like rose petals and warm like morning tea

she tastes like dulce de leche

"really?" she pulls away then falls back into

the kiss

and i feel her smile against my lips

i taste her lips,

mangos, dragonfruit, rain,

she's ultraviolet and soft and shimmering

"how long?" she pulls away just long enough to spit out those words and close enough for me to feel her breath on my skin.

she softly presses her velveteen lips against mine

it's a garden in my stomach, filled with hummingbirds, bees and butterflies

and i feel the tingling sweet shock through my body

i detach our lips and keep our foreheads against each other.

she opens those dark matter eyes filled with constellations

her inky eyelashes spilling from her eyelids, lining her lash-line.

"you know i've wanted you since the first day our souls touched, and you fell into my world."