Suddenly, the flames spark up, as they do upon pressing the button of a lighter.
It burns. It hurts a little, but it also feels good a little. I dissolve—skin like melted wax sliding off my bones, trickling down on the ground, viscid and inert. Only the naked heart remains, and it’s beating like it never has before. A crazy heart—drumming so fast you fear it will explode, but it never does.
You know I waited for you, and you were waiting too;
we were two idiots tossing and turning in our lonely beds somewhere;
we were two idiots staring at the white walls, lit up by the dull winter morning’s light while meanwhile outside the city is exploding. Sirens and screams and the never-ending back and forth of these troubled souls, unrested and swarming the narrow sidewalks, headed towards places only they know.
We were two idiots staring outside of windows when the night was dark, holding one of those cheap beer bottles; between our lips, there was a cigarette we wished would bring oblivion—behind us, the music of a summer night’s party, the kind nobody really likes but still insists on listening to.
And maybe you’d take out your phone from your pocket, stare at the blank screen for a while before starting to type some message, something like “how are you – it’s been a while”. Your thumb hangs over the send button and in re-reading it you feel like a fucking fool so you delete everything, you delete everything and convince yourself it’s silly, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters.
You toss away the smoke after one last drag, close up the window and turn towards that indistinct mass of grinding sweaty bodies—a carnival, a mascaraed. They’re there because they have something to forget, just like you. So you smile, you smile because you feel numb. You take another sip, and then another one and maybe you’re forget, maybe forgetting is possible. Just for a little bit at least.
And driven by pride and vanity, we’ve orbited around each other for oh-so-long—always brushing but never touching—as days became weeks and weeks turned into months.
Never speaking, because silence is comfortable, it’s so easy to stay quiet instead of trying to dumb down things too big to be put into words. Maybe it’s better to be quiet than to try to ruminate those clumsy love declarations that don’t really mean much. Maybe it’s better to speak through actions and through stares, speak with the heart rather than the lips instead of trying to stuff things too grand into boxes too small.
Finally we roamed the world from and to end to end only to go back to the start.
And I haven’t smoked in months. I don’t need to anymore.
Text by Ludovica De Gaudenzi
Photography by Lauren Engel
Models: Ellis & Alex Ordonez of D1 Models
MUA: Charlotte Kraftman using Charlotte Tilbury Makeup
Stylist: Lauren Abbondola
Location: Carlos E. Fernández-Dieppa
