The City

By Kam Whitaker

We walked along a road with street names we don’t know, letting our naivety call it an adventure– We called it love. Curiosity became intoxicating; a drunken kiss of the moonlight that couldn’t illuminate your face— Sunken in cheeks and tired eyes was all I had left of myself, but I believed you when you told me I looked beautiful under the streetlights. You became an afterthought, a quick figure of my imagination, but light moves too fast to grab, no matter how quick I am. I am left with the ashes of burnt out stars and I pressed my fingers together, hoping this time you wouldn’t slip through— Every footstep towards the city, I was falling out of love with myself and I used you to fill the hole I left.

It was never your fault that I admired the way your lies sounded trustable— Words became addicting and you were a drug that I would always come back to. I’d always ignore the sick and dizzy high. You left me screaming until my lungs couldn’t breathe in the pollution of the town; Until my body could no longer take you.