From the first moment you touched my lips, I knew you were mine.
I had always thought it a myth, until it happened to me: I found you during my pot smoking days. I never knew you two went hand in hand, like two peas in a pod.
God, I was so nervous to talk to you, one of my friends introduced us; she told me your name. I think I was sixteen.
We started off casual, nothing too serious. I would see you on the weekends and occasionally after school. You would make me smile so hard I would cough, but oh how glorious each cough you induced was, affection rushing from where it began, passing through my stomach, weaving past my tangled intestines like Maradonna dancing toward the goal, then shooting down both legs to tickle the tips of my toes, resting in my heel.
I was still playing varsity soccer at this time. I would never let you go to my games. My coach would never allow it.
Although I tried to keep it casual, we all know how a smitten adolescent can be. Our friendship soon became intimate, making love to you in my backyard because my parents despised you and in the woods past my high school’s athletic fields because you weren’t allowed on campus.
Every moment we spend together was ethereal euphoria; you satisfied every atom and every hair follicle and every capillary on and in my body, yet I always seemed to want more; even more than most of my friends.
As the months went on, my heart grew more and more fond of your presence, yearning for your being more than the few times we had already become accustomed to daily, and you, like the wonderful girlfriend you are, never ceased obliging me.
Some of my friends did not share the same compassion that I felt towards you. They stopped saying hello as we passed each other in the halls.
On certain rare occasions that we didn’t see each for a few hours and my brain forgot to remind myself of you, my nose would notice the lack of your scent, normally dwelling in my hair and on my middle and pointer fingers and in my blazers and on my shirts and pants and everything that I owned. My parents didn’t like your smell. Fuck them. What do they know?
An important decision was soon upon me: I desired to devote everything to you, but I was yet limited by my athletic requirements. And, as they say, “No one can serve two masters,” so I chose you.
We had an eternity to spend together, just you and I, hours upon hours, enjoying you over a cup of coffee or a long walk or a joint or an extended drive or a Kerouac novel or simply doing nothing.
You started calling me. I guess I wasn’t giving you enough attention. My apologies. Please forgive me. I love you.
You started calling me at home, while with my parents home, you said you wanted me badly. You know my parents would kill the two of us if they knew. But the thrill overwhelmed me, twice over. A collaboration of parental rebellion and sweet sweet love kept me coming back.
But your selfishness, slowly – incredibly slowly, as when one observes a runner about a mile away when you happen to notice, at first indecipherable if he/she is coming toward or away from you, but once apparent he/she pursues a path toward yourself, you perceive this jogger is stationary, not propelling his/herself forward or in any sort of direction, until it seems as though he/she had not run the distance, but was picked up and placed just a hundred yards away from oneself – became discernable to myself; you kept beckoning me at very inconvenient times: at home watching TV or with the parents or in class or just when I was not in the mood. My rationality told me to call it quits, kick you to the curb, by my personality yearned to breathe your breath, taste your irreplicatable (not able to be replicated) taste.
Time and time again, you beckoned, and I acquiesced, knowing that eventually, we would go our own ways. It would be any day now. Any day…
I told you found a new girlfriend, one that is even more pleasing to the palate, erotic to the eyes, more habituated to my heart. Yet, you cared not. You came to my home and lay on my bed and I would ravish you, unable to resist, watching as your base smile engulfed you entire being.
My new girlfriend caught us together and she cried, and I cried, explaining that it was all over between the two of us, and she believed me.
Our love became a deception, one vast façade – I am Benito Cereno, you are Babo, guiding me with invisible chain, but pulling me back in when I strayed too far from you.
I felt as if I had no way out, that my life would eternally, sadly, be with you. Oh, the horror! Horror!
But, as you sadly began to realize, as I was once told before, “No one can serve two masters.” My new girlfriend transformed to my new love. I even asked her for her name. Cassandra, so elegant and humanly real.
Through hours and weeks and months of discussion and elaborate argumentation, as if one should even need convincing of this, I was brought to the realization that the undying love of a beautiful human being far surpassed that of a cultivated plant, through something my former lover could never give me but which I currently dwell in: reciprocity. And do you know why you have been eternally replaced by this being named Cassandra? Because you are a fucking cigarette, dirty Camel!
So, what have I learned from these years? Love is an addiction. Watch out…
