I wait for you to come to the door. I used to count how many seconds it took for you to get to the bottom of the stairs. It was around 36, or maybe half of that, I don’t know. I envisioned this moment for the past two days: Smoking a cigarette, meeting your eyes when you open the door, flicking it into the street.
The first thing you say to me: You really have been smoking. You smell like a camel. We are walking up the steps, talking about cigarette brands.
*
You say you think you’ve told me this story, but you never did—about the DA of Brooklyn coming to your school years back and giving an anti-drugs, anti-alcohol speech, and he ended it with: Remember kids, just don’t drink until you’re 18!
*
This feels too much like our first date. You say things about yourself as if I don’t already know them.
*
You casually tell me: Your drug of choice is opium.
*
I say: I think I’m losing brain cells. Like a lot. You say: Well, you like being choked. That’ll do it.
*
We are talking about my acrylic nails, and you say it’s a surprise that they’ve stayed on for so long, I always lose them. I say I only lost them because I’d be with you and we’d get drunk. By the end of the night, four are gone. It’s a curse, you say, They’re my presents.
*
You ask: Are you scared of bugs? And I look and see the earwig. As you press tape against it, you mumble: They’re the dumbest creatures; they never move when you try to kill them.
You say, Oh, you’re chainsmoking, and I say that’s how I smoke. It keeps getting in my eyes; I apologize for crying, I say you’ve seen it too many times. You tell me not to worry—it’s hot when I cry.
*
I think about telling you that I wrote about you, and instead I smoke a cigarette. I’m drunk, though, and I can’t get it off my mind. So, I tell you: I wrote about you. The piece is called Knuckle Tattoos.
*
You are leaning over the windowsill with me, watching this red car parallel park in front of a fire hydrant. KEEP GOING, I yell at him, YOU’RE GOOD, YOU’RE GOOD. You start to tell me about the Orange Tree deli he’s in front of—how they sell heroin and all sorts of stuff, but none of it is good. You’re in the middle of a sentence when I pull your face to mine and we kiss, we make out completely, your tongue in my mouth. I realize how drunk I am with my eyes closed; I’m spinning, and if I was standing I’d fall. I’m sitting and I’m falling into you, like old times, but new.
*
I finish my pack of cigarettes, which means I smoked a whole pack in one day. It’s only excusable because I’m drinking. You get me a new pack, and I only smoke one before I fall asleep. You make me tea and I’m out by the time you bring it in. You slide into me and tell me to moan into the pillow. I missed it all so much.
*
The next morning, I choose the tea that says Throat Comfort and I rationalize smoking another cigarette.
***
Danielle Chelosky is a New York-based writer who has words about music and culture in MTV News and The Fader, as well as words about sex and relationships in Hobart Pulp and Flypaper Lit. She currently studies at Sarah Lawrence College.
image: Lindsay Hargrave
Rejection Letters 