Mine For The Taking

This city isn't too bad. It kind of grows on you after a few check-ins. It's just full of hotels with broken heart signs and band-aid bliss offers. Beds for late night rumination and booze that never runs out for nights when you want to forget. Full of people, too. People like you, nursing the same heartache but with different kinds of scars. People who may need parts of you and steal parts of you. A quiet stare, a brush of a finger, a grip on your arm. Some reach for your face, and kiss your lips. Others take you in their arms and rest their heads on your shoulders.

I am in Heartbreak City, yet again. Well, not yet. I stand in the in-between. Quite close to the walls of this city. I am in the middle of Almost There Avenue. Where hearts are on the verge of being broken. Where uncertainty meets us in the middle and where the message is revealed. It's either we get out with big fat grins on our faces or we get stuck with tears streaming down our cheeks.

I am standing in the middle of this wet road, looking up the great dark sky. The rain is threatening to fall. Lightning cuts through the clouds with its white-hot edges. I close my eyes and breathe in. Confusion is ruling my mind. I do not know how I feel. I shake my head. And I start to walk in circles. I remembered things, things I should not have asked or done. I see the lights from the city I'm from continue to blur. And I look up the sky again. And there you are. With that subtle smirk. The way your eyes squint a little. The inflections in your voice. And I look down.

Looks like I know where I am headed. I stop walking in circles. And I face the pink city lights that float in the dead of night. I take one step, and two. And I stop and turn around. I start walking backwards. Swaying to the beat of the music playing in my head. Hands in my pocket, I take one last look at the city that reminds me of everything about you. And I turn around again, into the Gates of Despair, toward the embrace of these pink lights that seem to want the pain.

This is my city again. The night is mine to own. The bed is of my choosing. The bliss is mine for the taking. I go back to that hotel that treated me kindly one summer. I greet the doorman kindly. And duck into the doors. I walk into the lobby. And surprise, surprise, what do I find?

There you are in Heartbreak Hotel, with your subtle smirk and squinting eyes, hands in your pocket and leaning on the front desk. Heartbreak City, indeed.