The cigarette burns aren't fading
only become less painful and more scabbed over.
When I first saw her, I was happy, please understand.
I saw her entering the cafe from my position opposite the door.
Brett Shady was playing the center of the room but my attention was not on him, not entirely.
She and her boyfriend took the only standing room still available in the far corner.
I'm not sure if she saw me but I think she did.
I think she kissed her boyfriend after she first saw me, which is fine.
I would have done the same, had our rolls been reversed.
After a few more songs I could no longer bear it. I stepped
outside.
I walked two blocks up the rode from the cafe to Bonanza Market.
I bought a pack of cigarettes and walked even further up the hill.
There, I found my favorite spot, one which I had found with a dear friend.
There is a swing hanging under a big tree, surrounded by flowers.
I must have went through half the pack before deciding to move on.
I figured I'd catch the rest of the show from the door.
Walking back however, something caught my eye.
A play was just beginning at the Nevada Theatre and I heard it was semi decent.
I snuck in through the side as I had done many times before and took my seat.
On stage, performing a small girl was another girl who I had kissed.
Who I loved.
When I first saw her I think she saw me too.
I looked down feeling a tear in my eye.
When I looked up I was sure.
She was looking at me with a sort of pleasant smile on my face.
As if she'd known what I was feeling.
The regret, the sadness, the longing.
All these things came rushing up inside me so quickly that I had to leave.
I again went to my favorite spot and finished the pack, saving a few cigarettes for that night.
Oh God, how I would need them.
I walked back to maybe see the end of Brett Shady's set. The show was over however.
Walking out was a friend of mine who I had not spoken to in a while. I waved her down and we began talking. About what I remember not. But it took my mind off things.

A while after a girl I had onced kissed and had once kissed me walked out of the cafe with her boyfriend.
She smiled at the friend I was with, not sparing me a glance.
My friend turned to me
"How could you let her go, Nolan? Why would you let her go?''
I turned my back to her and began walking.
Two or maybe three ours later I arrived home, all my tears shed.
I didn't sleep that night.
The face of the girl and her boyfriend came flooding into my dreams as the tears had off my face.
The face of the ******* stage came flooding into my mind as the nicotine had done my blood.
Regret was sharing my bed that night.
Whispering in my ear accusingly "How could you have let her go?"
Pain was in my room that night.
Roughly fondling my heart as if it were a stone.
Sadness was kissing my mouth that night.
Only allowing whimpers to come out.