LOVE ME LIKE ART

11

열하나
Imani L. Crawford

MARY JANE MAKES ME disappear.

It is like I am Alice in my own corrupt wonderland and I'm trying to find ways to get back to myself, as smoke pulses out of my lips. I smoke like I've got an entire anchor weighing on my shoulders because it lets me think.

Think about things I hate thinking about but my mind charts me there. Like how I doubled down to them, my parents that their divorce didn't shatter me when it did.

Or how I pose like I am this woman that doesn't feel anything when I feel everything.

In violent, strident waves.

Do you know what it is like to feel utterly helpless but be so consumed by your grief so you dive into things, by their nature, that shouldn't help but they do?

I inhale a gust of weed as more smoke pours of out my nostrils. I chase it down with my half-drunk wine glass and a side of cold, stale fries. The lights drop low, as my front room is plunged into darkness. Rain patters against the window as Asake's timbre blanks me with his crisp resonance. He belts out the lyrics to Terminator with unfettered charm and I hum back like an enraptured groupie.

Cassie turns the key to my apartment, crossing the threshold and she walks in, yawning with a tired gruff.

"Hey, my love."

"Morning, baby." A scratchy purr courses out of her mouth. She is dressed, down from her shoulders, in my musk green velvet robe that suddenly grew legs and disappeared out of my closet, weeks ago. 

She sinks into the plush fur of my couch, chasing my eyes with a soft sigh.

"So, it is you that's been going through my shit?" I quietly note, as my blunt hangs on the corner of my mouth.

"Guilty as charged." Cassie croaks at me, in defence.

"I need to put a lock or something on the damn thing." I say, more of a throwaway comment in jest because I don't mind sharing. I had to learn that art, growing up in a twin room with my older sister, Brielle because we lived in a run-down council house when we didn't have much. Her stealing my shit, me stealing hers is just a virtue of our two decade friendship that began at St. Vincent's Primary School in Havering.

"You're just pressed that this shit looks better on me." Cassie bites back at me, swallowing herself into my robe.

"Cass, you can fuckin' lie."

"The truth hurts, don't it?" Her crimson brown eyes land on me, amongst the smoke. I'm dressed to the nines, in nine-inch wrap-around stilettos and a leather strapless mini dress that gives my body her bends and curves. "You look snatched, snook. That dress is doing your body right."

I flutter my eyelashes at her in a coltish sat, swimming in a sea of her compliments. "Thank you, luv." I take a slow drag of my blunt that is making me tweak in the corner. I flick hot ash into my ash tray and take another toke.

"You're welcome, friend." There's a brown beam in her eyes as she takes me in. "You got any grub?"

I offer up my fries, "I've also got some Thai in the fridge." At my offer, her eyes light up with subtle interest.

Her eyes travel to my drawn curtains as she tinkers, thinking about it. "Who eats leftover Thai in the morning? You don't have eggs or something?"

It is only now that I realise she thinks it's the morning. I don't blame her—the drawn windows, the living room plunged in darkness, the candle melts on a soft burn. It is giving a certain kind of ambiance that it is the crack of the dawn.