Darling Wigleaf,

Please don't tell my girlfriend that I smoke peach-flavoured cigarettes. She'll kick my arse. And normally I would like that. But I haven't written anything good for weeks now and I'm feeling a bit delicate.

Last night she was out at band practice, so I scrunched up on the couch with my laptop and a glass of cheap red and tried to bleed out some poems or something.

Nine deleted opening lines later, I took my wine glass and lighter out to the back of our building to the paved area with the bin shed and washing line and a view of the rear windows of a dozen flats. Every window was lit up, so I smoked my secret cigarette and watched the city go to bed. The air smelled of frying food and clean laundry, and it was warm enough that I hadn't put shoes on but cold enough that the hairs on my arms felt rough. I could see a few burning blobs where other people had gone out for their own secret cigarettes. I liked the feeling of having a communal secret.

I went back inside, wrote 500 words without blinking, then went to sleep feeling terribly smug. The next day my laptop crashed and I lost those effortless 500 words, but I guess that's what I get for being smug.

Love.






- - -

Read KL's story, "All-Night Cartoon Party."

w i g · l e a F               09-30-09                                [home]