Broken summer spells

So when we're walking from one neon light to another at the beach, we take in the warm and salty smell of the sea, the tinkle of ice cream vendors who watch people distractedly and women who walk around with brown baskets full of summer flowers.

He buys me flowers. I love wearing flowers. The haunting smell that walks with me everywhere... yes, I love wearing flowers.

His hands feel warm and coarse in mine. Unlike the one I'd held before and for long months. Its amazing how one can adapt to different things. Or to different men...Sometimes I wish this was the last one.

We make heads turn. Both of us smile to ourselves knowing that we look good together. It pleases us no end.

His hands run a line connecting the three moles on the length of my hand. They're the perfect points for a straight line - a graph. Like those 3 stars you see forever in the sky. I don't know what they're called, but you do know what I mean, don't you?

I once colored my hair pink, he says fondly. A trifle arrogantly too.

It’s my cue to say something I've done. To regret maybe. But to look back and smile in fondness definitely.

My other hand draws patterns in the sand. No, not those random ones. I realize it’s the one I used to doodle when way back in school.

I have a tattoo, I lie carelessly.

His fingers drop from my hand. The pause. The first step of abandonment.

The longer pause. He takes a step back in our life together. The actual act of abandonment. I wonder what his exit line will be with me, him being creative and all with the women in his life…

Where? Did I ever consider his voice gentle?

I take his hands that have long left my body. Placing them on the lower end of my spine, I lie again. Here.

And recklessly pointing to the sun which I've brought to the sand, 'It looks like this.'

I can now smell the stench of fish. The smell of oil mixed in water from the numerous boats that will never be lost at sea.

Tattoos and them being slutty on women, his voice says.

I lost a guy over a tattoo I never had.
We walk back together to where we never came from.
And I left the flowers behind.