RAMBLINGS

nirvana

To the construction workers, opposite to the road, she was someone who defied all the stereotypes.

To the men in the petrol bunk, they couldn't care less, they'd already seen a million girls like her before. They just hoped, like all the times before, that it wouldn't lead to a fire.

To her friends in the car, she was trying new things and maybe, just for once, she'd shut up about her inexperience.

To the girl herself, she didn't quite understand why she wanted to do this. Maybe it was to put it behind her, say to people she'd done it, all the while trying to act cool and nonchalant, but she knew her hand trembled when she had held a cigarette for the first time.

She couldn't change how she was a coward underneath her skin and sometimes she just wanted to peel it off, show the world what she was made of but she was scared of that too.

Maybe a little liquid courage would help? And she drank, again not knowing why she was doing it.

Oh yes, for the false bravery of course.

She didn't have much, but it was enough. Enough to fuck with the filter that she always had on.

Yes, that was what she wanted after all.

That night, people told her things that made her mind spin and she told them some too. She hoped they were good enough as theirs. But whom was she kidding? Half of them were lies anyway.

But lying made things much easier, people liked her more, related to her better, she wanted to keep lying if it made her feel this way.

She revelled in it. She loved how it brought fingers to her hair, tugging gently at the roots, she loved how people were looking at her, wondering whether she was drunk or not, she loved having the attention of her best friend for once, having someone to worry about her, she loved not having to think of any care in the world, whilst inhaling the dust when she danced, loved having a boy tugging at her hand but somehow tugging at her heart too at the same time, she loved that she didn't have to deal with her friends at all, instead just live in that moment.

She wondered, in the half dream state, if this was how heaven looked like. Loud and boisterous but yet peaceful and serene. If she died today, she'd be happy to go, happy to know that this was the very last memory of her life.

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