Too sensitive to smell

The cool September wind was playing a song as it passed over my half-full Heineken bottle – my feet steps ahead of his just so he could see how pretty I looked with my hair whipping across my face and my shorts covered by a long sheer salmon-colored shirt, exposing my newly flattened stomach and floral print black bra.

I’ve been stressed. I don’t usually notice stress, but it’s evident because every bite of food, besides potato chips and McDonald’s makes my stomach turn, so my body thins. 

Every rough step, every dive the boys took into the alluring dark waves, every burst of laughter and “come on man” while I marveled at the stars I hadn’t seen in months, sent me into a spell of déjà vu.

It feels good to have déjà vu, but what does it mean? It’s the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past. Most don’t understand what is really happening when you experience déjà vu, and for the sake of prose I’ll pretend as well.

It was as if I was supposed to be there. I was happy, very happy.

 

Does it have anything to do with that night?

 

Texas hasn’t been as good to us. His eyes don’t pull up in the corners as his mouth does the same when he looks at me. It’s almost a blank stare. And then when I smile he asks, “What?”  

He’s mad at me all the time.

I wonder if someone outside the situation would see it his way. Maybe I am wicked. I try really hard to make him happy. Or at least I think I do. I guess I’ve never been good at it.

When I want to put my lips all over him, when I want every inch of my body to fuse with his, when I want our bones to grind and make dust that soaks up the blood forming on the top of the skin on our necks… I’m turned on now… But he thinks I’m too clingy and I ask too much.

But when I sip rum on The Looking Glass patio alone staring at the beautiful people doing beautiful things and daydreaming about the beauty they bring to my life, when I walk away to smoke without asking him to come, when he asks me a question and I don’t answer to think about the answer… I can’t give him enough attention.

He would rather sit for hours and look at others’ pictures on Instagram and Facebook then see the picture in front of him that he can reach out and hear, smell and touch. And I guess he wants me to do the same – having relationships with others only online.

Missouri – like always – has been tumultuous. I broke up with him. He’s begged, but my pride is stronger than my grace. It’s something I should work on.

I can’t eat and neither can he. I’m shaking and I see his hands twitching above the keyboard.

The difference is I’m sitting alone while he’s downstairs laughing with my friends, although the best part of him lingers to keep me preoccupied – the smell of his deodorant.  It could practically induce my vomiting – I danced around Target while he held every men’s antiperspirant up to my nose until I was woozy and sick and giggling, while couples looked at us and wished they were in that simple, bothersome moment.

That mirage will forever trick me.