Retrospect

She sparked a joint in the dark and sighed a cloud of smoke into the cool fall air. Climbing the crumbling cement slabs to their sacred "place", she stumbled over thoughts of his leaving. She couldn't bear the knot in her heart that somehow gripped her throat. They had lived fast and hard for months, fucking and fighting and making up with soft kisses and pleading promises to change everything. She bitterly flicked ashes onto the coarse foundation and knelt beside the place where they had carved their epitaphs into stone. She traced the jagged letters with a cold callused finger and shivered. The night air surrounded her with the ghosts of all who had come before him. He would never come here again, she knew. His presence was absent from the others that haunted her. She rested her cheek on the cool cement over his name and closed her eyes, wishing that she could take back her many mistakes...

to be continued..