Character

photo: Neely Johnson

“We haven’t located us yet." - The Darjeeling Limited

        She lit up another cigarette. Examining the embers that disintegrate as she taps it back into the ashtray, she exhales. She immediately feels guilty.

       So much for that health kick.

       She takes another drag and another sip of her hot whiskey. She exhales. Her body feeling warm replacing the chill that has been affixed ever since she left herself alone.She looks around.

       A room full of no one. No one she knows. She wonders what it would be like to be in a photograph with each of them, as if she knew all of them. Bunny ears, crossed eyes, the works. Each of them showing their personalities without regret.  Regret that is festering in her gut every moment.

       “Zia,” he croons, “tune out the noise. Why listen when it’ll only bang up your head?” She rubs her temples, hoping that the image of the familiar photographs with perfect strangers will fade away. It fades away quicker than the blue gaze that seems to be permanently etched into her heavy mind.

       Expectations litter her mind. Weighing it down with scraps of worries, anxieties, smiles, crossed eyes that were never her own. A puppet.This life is not meant to be lived for others.

Maybe she is a bit darker than she thought -- than everyone thought. Maybe it’s the whiskey.

Lock and key

Come find me.

A brutal brawl

On a buzzing saw

Slicing my two mirrors,

Waiting to see clearer.

Reflecting my mind

A thousand times.

Shrink myself into a crystal puzzle

To be solved by that dream lover.

On the brink of cracking,

You are what I am lacking.