Coffee and Cigarettes

    The sun cracks the sky on a cool Tuesday morning. Her silk black hair veils her face, her bare shoulder peers out from beneath the sheets. I turn off the alarm a few minutes before it calls out, I don't want to wake her. Cautiously extricating myself from the sheets, I make my way to the bathroom. A quick shower to rinse the scent of alcohol from my skin, half-awake before the morning ritual begins. A cup of coffee and a cigarette out on the balcony, watching the waves roll in. This is my peace, the eye in my storm. I slide the glass door shut quietly, pick up my keys, look back toward the bedroom one last time before I leave. She was always so beautiful, always so perfect, and I don't think she's ever seen me like this. Sober, clean, dressed for the rest of the world, the world I've never invited her into. We burn away nights, and somewhere between dawn and the evening, I know she'll get up, get dressed, and leave.

     Traffic is thick with noxious smells and impatient curses. Each of us inching our way to the prison of the day, a chorus of horns every time the road ahead is bathed in the glow of brake lights. The faint scent of her perfume struggles to survive amidst the overpowering swell of exhaust and a just-lit cigarette. It was probably just a memory anyways, just as she becomes the moment I leave each morning. Curious, this world we've found ourselves in. Better lit by neon lights than the shadows the clouds cast by day. How does the sun reconcile with the moon, as they pass? Is it a hastily spoken apology, a eulogy for the day he's leaving behind? Or is it a guilty kiss, a surrender to the will of their nature, each trudging through their hours awaiting those few precious seconds of pleasure?

     The office is quiet, I don't have to come in early, but if I didn't, I might not come in at all. I might just stay in bed, 'cept I don't think either of us needs to wake to the inevitable questions. A tryst, the affairs of the heart, some things are better left unsaid. She's not the type to make me breakfast, I'm not the type to make small conversation. I don't even know how she likes her coffee, or if she drinks it at all. It's better that she lets herself out, that we're not obligated to promise we'll call. So we take our quiet moments for all that they are, and never try to make more of this. Days in, night's out, and I'm on her lips again. The whispered secrets in a quiet corner of the bar, the rapturous moments where all that we are is all we've ever wanted. Another moment of her intoxication, and I'm fumbling for the keys again.

     "I can't go on like this." She spills out the words, half smiling, half asleep. The fire of a single lit candle dances behind her, the light brings out a slight hint of red in her hair. We're barely conscious, fairly drunk, and our lust for life sated, the moment has come that I have simultaneously dreaded and pleaded for. The world between love and war, the words that she drops so carelessly on the floor, a crumpled pile of dreams and desire lying next to her dress. The hidden meaning is not lost on me, her eyes don't ask to end this, but to begin. To begin living, in those hours where we have resigned ourselves to emptiness. It's overpowering, her soft touch, her steel eyes, the way her scent ingrains itself into my thoughts, each artfully moving against my best defenses. I want nothing more to give in, instead I watch her heart break in those eyes when I say, "I promise, I'll call."

     I turn off the alarm a few minutes before it calls out, take a quick shower to rinse the guilt from my skin. I step onto the balcony for coffee and a cigarette, and wonder when she left.