MIND FULL

My mind is full.
Too full.
It hums, no, throbs, with stories. Loops of memory, scenes I can’t shut off.

Touch me, and you don’t touch skin,  you touch my aching heart.
I am the sum of everything I’ve ever wanted and lost. Every look that lingered too long, every careless shove on a crowded street, every finger brushing mine either deliberately or in passing. I am stitched together with glances, greetings, the weight of kindness from people who had no reason to care and the cruelty of those who should have…deeply!

I carry them all. Lovers and liars. Friends and betrayers.

I don’t forget. 

My mind is an endless loop.

I learnt love young, from the OGs (mum and dad), the architects of tenderness and tempest. They loved with eyes like the tidal pool at Dalebrook, still and shimmering in summer, yet wild and feral when July storms broke over the shore.

Love is layered, I’ve learnt, soft and savage; tender and tumultuous. It has teasing hands and rough laughter; it is the silent press of bodies grown old together, aching together, wrapped in a knowing that doesn’t need words.

And at 21 I was taught love of another kind.
Love that leads to ruin, cracked wide open, all splinter and shard.
With edges jagged enough to slice clean through anyone who tried to hold me down.

I learned that love can also leave.

Leave you standing in a half-furnished apartment meant for forever. Leave you surrounded by skeleton furniture and unslept sheets. Leave you wondering how a man who promised you everything can walk away thirty days before your wedding and tell you, "This doesn’t feel right."

Thirty days to unravel five years.

Thirty days to become someone else.

_______________________________________________

"What do you want from me?" he was at his wit's end, at the brink.

"More," I said, "more of everything."

"More of your lips that taste of Marlboro and coffee."  I traced hot fingers firmly over parted lips.

"More glances, deep and promising, holding mine," I said, touching eyelids heavy with emotion.

"More heart,...your mind and soul; mine, with every pulse," my warm hand on chest hard as marble; and just as smooth.

"More time... with you, fleeting seconds, lasting moments; or days spent in yearning when you 're not with me."

I felt his breath warm against my ear, "Yes," he said with a trace of sadness, "take everything."

"Shhhhhhh!" I said, compliance expected; my control absolute.

My nails were painted as dark as my intentions; my lips, blood red ... I almost felt sorry for him, he had no idea:

It was time to dance with the devil.

I picked them out, and discarded then at will, my heart as hard as granite.

I cut him loose soon after, left him disorientated wondering WTF.

"Bitch!" he spat at me as he walked out of the busy restaurant I reserved for break-ups.

I felt nothing...
Nothing when the eyes of the patrons settled on me at his cursing.
Nothing when the waitress shook her head (she knew me well).
Nothing when I saw him flip the collar of his jacket to brace against the storm inside and out.

I picked up my cup of coffee, now ice cold and gulped it down, motioning for a refill.

I got down to business, deleted contact details off my phone, made an entry in my calendar to mark his passing.

That done, I dialed a number and waited.

"Hey, Sexy!" he said, the thrill of anticipation in his voice.

I cringed; I hated being called that.

"Hi there," I said feigning excitement, "Wanna hook up, I'm at loose ends."

"I'm home, working."

"I'll be there in 10," I said.

 I gestured at Carol for the bill, and she hurried over sensing my haste.

She tolerated me, I guess as I tipped her well, I needed this cold, soulless dive as my dumping ground.

_______________________________________________

I made it to his apartment in Kloof Street in 5, hammered on the door, and lost items of clothing as soon as I stepped inside: skirt, shirt, but kept on the heels.

"Whoa!" he jumped in as I jumped him, "what about the foreplay?"

"Foreplay is for sissies," I hissed.

It took me 3 strides to reach him, and 3 minutes to get off.

10 minutes later I was out of there, leaving only my scent and my panties behind.

It was going to be fun playing with his heart.

It was almost sweet how he thought it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Back at the restaurant, coffee hot and black in one hand, android in the other, I marked my calendar with his name...

Day 1...

29 more to go...

_______________________________________________

He called off the wedding 30 days before our Big Day.

"This doesn't feel right," he said in a room with skeleton furniture custom made for our new life together: "I can't go through with it."

30 days was all it took:

30 days to cancel "Happily ever after".

30 days to wear away 5 years of promises

30 days that would last a lifetime.

________________________________________________

Back home I smeared my remaining make-up across my face looking like the Joker, the lingering madness playing behind soulless eyes.

In the quiet, the fierceness subsided, and I felt hollow.

I sat cross-legged on cold tile, blowing smoke rings spiralling slowly away from my quivering lips.

I  stared at the empty corners , at my empty life.

And still, I lit candles.

A defiance.

A mockery.

A fragile prayer.

I closed my eyes and let the memories drown me —

But I don’t forget. 

My mind is an endless loop.

And tonight...

God help me!

I remember everything.