Ecchymosis

I wished for golden fingertips dusted with perfection to come down, and tie all the loose ends within my soul.

I wished for things that I knew weren't going to be true, but I still found myself wishing.

I wanted to be saved because I no longer wanted to be a livid soul. I didn't desire melancholic blues and grays that created a color only for rainy days. I craved happy yellows and oranges to resemble fresh starts. I wanted an imperfect life that I believed to be perfect.

I wanted a companion to share my silent atmosphere and be flawed together, I wanted more. But life dumps a bag of moments and opportunities and it was up to you to grasp every beautiful one. Sadly, I found that most slipped through the cracks of my caramel hands and fell into a pit of the past. I found that every missed opportunity and blissful moment to attack my already brittle heart, giving me the gift of anxiety.

I was no longer Arlo, the boy who held his truth in his words and a genuine smile on his lips.

I was now Arlo, the boy who held his truth within his dark eyes and a cancerous cigarette on his lips.

Arlo, the tsunami of fucked up youth.

Crimson liquid splattered the hardwood floor, the metallic taste overpowering my taste buds. My tongue darted out to clean the blood that laid upon the flesh above my chin as a grin coated my lips. The stinging pain of the random boy's bony knuckles settled under my skin uncomfortably.

Hijo de puta

My gaze fell on him once I recovered from the sudden sucker punch, realizing the situation immediately by the way he grabbed the girl I once had my lips on. Anger overfilled his words and dripped onto the grasp he had on her ebony arm, her heart shaped face contorted in discomfort and shock.

The blue lights gave her skin an intoxicating gleam and the boy's pale an annoying brightness. He looked especially flawed beside her, as if she was an unflattering camera zooming in on his imperfections.

"You're fucking cheating on me?!" His voice was deep, but shaky. I could hear the broken heart it was carrying and I didn't know if I should feel guilty. The loud music and liquor added onto the numbness I already sported. So the weak voice that reached my ears only pulled a chuckle from my brutal mouth.

His tall build whips to face me at the noise that was my voice. I could swear I saw his soul set ablaze at me mocking the show of his true emotion. And in that hazy moment, those bony knuckles came in contact with my cheek once again. Gifting me more pain to cuddle within my muscles. I didn't care, though. I didn't care when his hands clutched my shirt, slamming me into a wall. Or when my knees connected with the hard floor. I didn't care for the continuous marks he decorated on my face by his warm fists.

I didn't care because they weren't cold. I didn't care because they weren't rough and adult.

They weren't familiar.

"Stop! That's enough! I think he fucking gets it, Marc!" An unknown voice shouts somewhere in the midst of dancing bodies. It was strong enough to stop the onslaught and a choked laugh escaped my throat. Galaxies played behind my eyelids at the aggressive hand that touched them. Of course it hurt, but I learned to enjoy it. Pain. To find some type of solace within it, so a tear wouldn't fall, but instead a laugh.

Yeah, I know.

"Hey, dude. You alright?" A different voice appeared close by and I let my eyes open to get a look. A curly blond mess was his hair and freckles along with pimples scattered his face. His face was awfully ordinary, but his eyes--his eyes held eccentricity. With the lightest blue that could be found in ice, but strangely, it only gave the warmth a brown could.

"Yeah, this happens more than you think." I respond with a slight smile, fighting the ache it caused my cheek. His hand grasps mine at the attempt of helping me up, but I do most of the work.

"You often make out with other people's girlfriends?" He raises a bushy brow in bemusement before glancing at the bruises forming.

"Oh, yeah. But usually I don't have a fuckin' clue that they're cuffed."

A light laugh left his slightly chapped lips and he shook his head at me. The guy looked like he could easily go as the stereotypical nerd for Halloween. The eyes were the only thing that kept him in the gray area of society. Where he couldn't exactly be placed in a box.

"Where did he go anyway? One minute I'm getting my ass beat and the next I'm talking to Napoleon Dynamite." I question as I glance around the crowded house, rubbing my throbbing jaw. Another laugh reaches my ears from the skinny body.

"He got pulled out by his brother. I think that's the last of him for the night. I'm Carson, by the way." He flashed a friendly grin and I could tell he expected a name in return. But I didn't want the taste of my name on my tongue, I wanted the poisonous medicine of nicotine.

So, I fulfilled my craving and put a cigarette between my sinful lips. Leaving behind a Carson within a sweaty crowd, in search for freedom. The four beige walls turned suffocating and the anatomies became too close. I needed out. I didn't really know why I did this. Threw myself into social outings then got overwhelmed half way through.

I guess, in the middle of it all, I realized this isn't where I belonged. It isn't what made me happy. It was just a place I could get lost in, a place where an ocean of people were my disguise from the world.

And it helped...until I was half way through.

Less than a few minutes I found myself being engulfed in the night air that smelt of countless strangers and fast food restaurants. I loved when the sun retreated and let the moon borrow its light. Letting us rest our eyes along with our souls and allowing us privacy. The beryl blue layer on the color of space was almost therapeutic.

Almost

No matter how many times my eyes laid on the sky that replicated the pigment of the ocean, it didn't heal anything within me. It didn't replenish the desert that was my mind or the decaying shell that was my body. It was just a pretty blue that earned brief sighs of admiration.

That may be my biggest problem that laid on top the rest. I kept looking for things to save me without saying a damn word or doing a damn thing.

Que patetico

The cracked street was vacant and perfect for wandering, so I walked the line that was painted in between. Letting smoke irritate my lungs and the wind to erase my thoughts. Sometimes, when the world was silent, I actually was able to appreciate its strange beauty. From the cracks in the buildings to the unorganized stars. Imperfection was what my eyes found first before anything else and that's what I ended up loving the most. That would result in me going for the ones with perfect complexions and straight teeth. The mundane restricted my heart from beating fast in a barbie doll's presence. In which I wouldn't be capable of falling in love with a masterpiece, but only admire their aesthetic.

"Learned a lesson?" A wonderfully familiar voice came from a chipped bench on the sidewalk. Accompanied by the lovely Jupiter Astrid, the girl who lived a different life every week. Her voice wasn't light nor feathery like you would expect from a teen aged girl. It was slightly deep and smooth, giving comfort like warm milk. Her face wasn't one of ordinary, it was square and sweet. Furry brows that were exercised too often by expressions were placed above her chocolate brown eyes. Many beauty marks made constellations on her honey skin and her button nose gave her a look of innocence. I felt like I was spoiling her by just being in her proximity. I saw her eyes examine me studiously through her unkempt raven curls.

It lit a fire within me at feeling her gaze on me, no matter if I noticed her or not. Jupiter had a presence that connected deep within me. Maybe because we knew each other since we were in elementary school or because she had a thousand realities within her. I didn't know.

I just knew I got the most drunk when those forests of bark watched me. Analyzing all that was of me.

"A lesson? Oh, yes. Quite a good one, too." A smirk tugged the corner of my lip that I knew was stained with blood. She gave me her famous head tilt, reminding me of a puppy.

"Let's hear it," Jupiter replies and leans back with ease. Interest dancing within her chestnut irises. I began making my way to her.

"To wait 'til the boyfriend isn't looking." I calmly joked and a smile spread her plump lips thin. It did a poor job. Her thick lashes almost covered her eyes when she squinted at me with light reprimand.

"No wonder people see you as a bad boy."

"And how do you see me, Jupi?"

My body stopped at the pole that was diagonal from her. Leaning against it as I watched her as she was watching me. Many thoughts of what she was going to say raced through my mind. My heart thundered against my ribcage and I didn't realize how she viewed me was so important. But I kept my cool, like I always did. That's what bad boys did, but also people that just didn't want to show their feelings.

Something flickered in Jupiter's pupil and her head tilted to the opposite side, as if a question passed through her.

'

"What I see is a flawed boy who smokes..."

And that hit me. A breathy laugh escaped my tight throat and my vision blurred with salty tears. The simplicity of me being nothing more than a flawed boy. It was oddly refreshing, the reminder, I wasn't disastrous like an earthquake or torturous like a heart-breaker.

I was merely a flawed boy who smokes.

Arlo