after all this time | ✎

vi.

──

THE EVENING SUN casts long shadows on the ground. The slanting rays of the setting sun give a warm orange tinge to the sky.

I take comfort in the dusk and soak in the underlying dark. The feeling of twilight and inexplicable silence is unlike any other. 

I've been standing out here, awaiting Serenity to finish up. My frigid fingers are hidden away in my pockets, given the dreadful weather that blows.

"It's so pretty isn't it?" I turn and I discover, Serenity, her brown eyes are a million hues, so I wonder what the word "brown" even means and below that a nose so freckled that the brown splotches overlap much like fall leaves after a windstorm.

As my feet shift heavily, lumbering forward on this iceberg ground, I cast my gaze on the world above me, snowflakes freezing my skin on contact.

I nod, glimpsing at her, noticing dark circles have formed under her eyes- and she stands there, rubbing her eyes as if to fully wake herself.

With a soft breeze through her brown hair entwined with strands of gold and auburn, she stands elegantly and gazes blindly, in a state of hypnosis, at the sky while astonished eyes all around stare. 

She pulls her white wool scarf that sits snug to her skin, soft and gentle, tighter against the wintry wind, hiding those rosy pink cheeks that cover her face.

She drags a cigarette from the half-empty pack, strikes a match and watches it burn for a moment. 

I pause and think for a moment, a look of surprise crossing my face at the sight of the cigarette, wondering just what is going through her mind right now.

The best I can do is keep walking, letting my eyes move around as the snow seems to create the streets a sort of canvas, it's like the chaotic dance of billions uniting over the earth until I see her push the cigarette back into the pack and let out a tiny sigh of ease. 

She glances down at her grungy red converses, lost in thought leaving a terse discomfiting silence between the two of us. "I stopped using, the pills and everything. I just couldn't bring myself to stop smoking. "

"Well, it's just a little at a time. Slowly and carefully, right?" 

She bumps her hip into mine then squeezes her eyes shut and when they open they burn with something I can't quite put into words- perhaps remembrance. 

We wind through thoughtless pedestrians tight together to avoid collisions. "I haven't been to Prospect Park in years - how time passes."

She nods, "Seven years. Seven long years."

We walk in silence, our feet pounding the pavement. The city is alive around us, the sounds of traffic and people a constant presence. 

I am lost in thought, she is unknowing that she is on my mind. A sort of thought strikes a haunting melody that replays every memory of us, of what we used to be.