Dream of You

Always, when he closes his eyes, she's there, imprinted in his brain. It doesn't matter how many chicks he bangs, or how much alcohol he swallows, she's waiting for him when he passes out, her soft smile and tears and the smell of her hair.

He can't touch weed anymore, every time he tries he sees her lips purse around the joint he rolled for her and he grows hard as her eyelids droop. She's trained him with that look like a damned dog.

He wonders if bleach would erase his memories of her.

Her scent still lingers in his eyelashes, her voice echoes in his bathroom the moment he turns the faucet off. Sometimes, he swears he can see her silhouette pulling on her hose in the morning when he wakes up.

Tonight is as bad as its been for a while, so he creeps downstairs to a dive bar, stepping around a couple making out in the stairwell. For a moment, watching them, he feels her pearly teeth marking his neck. He shakes his head and continues walking.

He makes his way to the pool table as soon as he enters the smoky room. It smells like piss and sweat and booze. That's good, it should overpower the scent of cherries that always seems to linger around him.

He picks up a pool cue, feeling the familiar smoothness under his fingers, but tonight, it reminds him of her ankles, and how they tasted when he kissed them, so he puts it back down with a vicious oath and takes the first girl he sees up against the wall out back. She tries to hand him her phone number as he zips his pants back up, but he ignores her and heads back home, feeling like shit.

He fights sleep for as long as he can when he reaches his apartment, but eventually, hours later, he collapses face first on his messy bed and, as always, she's waiting for him in his dreams.