February 24, 2003 (idea)

I was standing there on the bluff, overlooking my town, watching the sunset. I felt the wind play at my long coat, smelled the factories on the edge of town, watched the smoke from my cigarette swirl around my head. This used to be our favorite place, in months past. We'd come up here, smoke, drink like underage college students, which we were. I lost my virginity here, on a blanket overlooking everything I'd ever known. She'd shown me so much of my body, of her body, how they fit together. Things I'd never even imagined being able to do. Feelings that I hadn't known, not even in the most erotic dreams.

I took a pull of my cigarette, which had almost gone out due to the neglect caused by a wandering mind. I just let things swirl in my head for a few minutes. Letting the maelstrom take over for a few fleeting moments, I let my eyes flick from landmark to landmark, remembering stories and thoughts behind each. Johnson's Plaza, where I first got stoned when I was sixteen. Hillerman High, where I first discovered drama and writing. Three Square Pizzeria and Fountain, my first date.

Faded memories remembered in a fading sun. The wind was getting quite cold; it was February after all, but nothing fixes a broken heart like a chill night and a pack of smokes. The time warping that occurs when dissonance is created where there was once harmony was hitting me hard. It felt like we had been broken up for a week, when it had only been...I looked at my watch....four hours. On her porch, after our two year anniversary date. In an odd moment of detachment, it occured to me that was a strange time to tell your beau to fuck off.

But the embers on my cigarette were dying, just like the day I found myself in. I retreated back down the path from which I had ascended, leaving only a cigarette butt, footprints, and a semi-frozen tear as evidence I had been there...