It wasn't supposed to end this way.
We sat there watching each other until the sun came up and dried our tears.
And he left.
It started lovely, like the beautiful taste - scent of the cigarettes seated sweetly in his pocket just for me.
We loved each other then.
Mother hated cigarettes.
But she loved us, she would say. So she put up with them.
My brother loved her.
But I loved her too.
And he loved me more.
So it was fine.
Weed tasted different then cigarettes.
It burned my throat, and made me cough
and suffocate and die and live.
I finally grinned.
And he smiled at me back as he hit the pipe.
We loved then too.
The first time we actually fought, I slapped him. Hard.
And sat out on the roof to smoke a cigarette or two- three, four. Until I couldn't breathe and I could finally
cry.
I went back.
We laughed, we smoked, and we shared my last cigarette. And we loved.
Mother used to call them our vices, these
things.
Vices.
Vices are only there if you need to want to have to have them.
My brother smiles and says they're his too and he would laugh and make a cheesy joke about what we are;
Fucking perfect.
And I smiled back, and lit mine up. He always does the same.
And what hurts more than anything is knowing what it's like to love and to have and then lose it.
It's like you're dying, but no one sees.
I laugh holding them, a joint and a cigarette between my fingers.
He grins and flicks my lighter in his hand.
And I breathed.
And it burned and I coughed and died.
He said he loved me.
My brother liked to smoke all the did I.
We would sit there smoking cigarettes until five in the morning.
Then we argued some more and had another one.
Sleep was for the weak. We weren't weak children.
He liked to drink. We would drink alone on the roof and just pretend like we were okay.
We had found love, and life, and all the glorious fucking alcohol.
Our mother left.
She said she didn't know us anymore. That we didn't need the cigarettes and weed, and my meds and the booze.
She hated it all, so she left us for good.
My brother wouldn't drink with me anymore.
It had started.
We fought more, and loved less. And I smoked more cigarettes.
Well I'd serve you drugs on a silver plate, if I thought it would help you get away.
I hope that you would do this for me.
When it ended, it ended.
It wasn't supposed to end this way.
We sat and watched each other until the sun came up and dried our tears.
And he tried to leave, but I grabbed a knife. I couldn't let him leave, but he persisted to try.
It went deep through his chest, and my mind was all cloudy.
And I quit.
No, I didn't.
I smoked his last cigarette, and I moved on. I went away to change my name and change my life, lying to everyone just to seem nice.
But I was actually a fucking disaster.