The Best Afternoon

-

I remember...

I remember the sun smiling down on the bends in the road, and the rain tickling our faces. We drove on towards a sweet uncertainty, knowing only that this has been the best afternoon, the best afternoon. 

 It started when I made a call. I fixed my teeth and fixed my hair. And somewhere behind the fatigue in my eyes danced a little girl, her irrepressible joy marking what would be the best afternoon, the best afternoon.

 The food hung heavy on my tongue, and rested gently in my belly. Our chatter spoke of people and places long lost to me. Of pain from far away, and above all, of home, of home. 

 Pride and joy took turns to exult. My skin no longer burned in the fires of consciousness. It was enough that I was enough and far more, more than enough. For on that day, I was the best afternoon, the best afternoon.

 We laughed and spoke of stranger things. I forgot how the city was afire around me. The flames spiked with the spitefulness of memory still reached out, and found they could no longer touch me. We stopped for cigarettes at a bend in the road on that rainy day, and the sun smiled down on us that afternoon; it was the best afternoon.

A tall brown boy with caramel eyes, he stepped for me, he ran for me. He laughed for me, would have done anything for me that afternoon. 
His home was lovely, rich and cool; his bed was soft and called me home. To a life devoid of sadness, of pain, of sex on the cold hard floor. A life filled with just the here and now, with handsome beautiful afternoons, the best afternoons of them all.
His smile was shy, his kiss was soft. His skin was golden in the light of a dying dusk that called to us. Dusk that called us gently down into the darkness. 

 Oh, tall brown boy with caramel eyes, who stepped for me, who ran for me. Who cared for me for just an afternoon, a single, perfect afternoon. And as we stepped out into the night in a lazy uncoiling of our souls enriched with happiness, I knew that we would stay this way. Forever ensconced in perfection for a single, beautiful afternoon, the best afternoon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave an opinion!

Popular posts from this blog

Throwback: Waltzing to the Tune of Rhetoric

-
Written September 7, 2010 A dark series of squiggles make their way down and across the page, in that order. Cheap poetry and lame jokes are the order of the day. For once the silence has retreated and is content to watch from the top row of the bleachers. For once there's no raining on the court while the ball's in play. There's a rose that lies at the back of my locker, wilted and fading away. It's a rose I don't expect to see in bloom again. It's a rose I've put aside, but one I cannot bear to throw away. Perhaps I should consign it to the bonfire I've made in my backyard, out of all the relics from the past. Perhaps keeping it in my locker is dangerous, for it might bloom again. Roses such as this one have been known to bloom more beautiful than before, long long after they withered away into nothing more than thin brown sticks and faded and detached petals. And in my excitement, I might just reach out and grab it again, forgetting th
Read more

Sweet Summer Child: A Love Letter

-
Image
Photo by  Petr Ovralov  on  Unsplash Written December 9, 2016 I am not a gifting person. Years ago, someone suggested I write them something about love as a gift instead. I made many starts, completed nothing. Perhaps happiness doesn't inspire me the way sorrow does. Then last year came the first and only love letter I've ever written. Does it mean more if you write letters? May I? Dearest. When I met you, the only taste I remembered any more was the taste of ashes in my mouth. When I met you, the sun had cracked open, and loss was everywhere.  When I met you, you were a shadow, hidden among shadows, a nervous joke whispered on the winds of my thoughts.  When I met you, I was looking for a friend.  Then I met you, and the sun rose again, whole and healthier than before.  I met you, and the joke turned to undying laughter on my lips.  I met you, and I knew longing again, my soul unable to bear its weight.  I did not know you existed, and in the wee hours o
Read more

Book Review: State of Fear by Michael Crichton

-
I don't usually have high hopes for action thrillers by white male authors. They're bound to involve super-efficient macho male protagonists, female leads whose greatest selling point is their attractiveness to the male leads, and the a plot that is basically all over the place. But, you know, you don't usually care because your flight is late by three hours and you need to kill time. I picked up State of Fear because I was chilling at my aunt's place and my phone was low on charge. I'd very wisely left my charger at my friend's place, so there wasn't anything else I could do except read. And the collection my uncle had left behind was mainly a bunch of atheist propaganda and also action thrillers by white males. *Snore* As I had recently had someone praise The Lost World  to me, I decided to give Michael Crichton a try. (I outgrew Jackie Collins by the time I was 13.) The book wasn't even engaging enough to prompt me to ask my aunt whether I cou
Read more