A Kiss on the Lips

Sweet nicotine I’ll miss you once you are gone,

Like a lover, a friend, a favourite son,

The black sheep of the family, my sweet cigarette,

Can I live without you will I learn to forget,

The caress that you give when I’m feeling down,

A kiss on my lips, one second of calm.

I remember our first embrace in my youth,

That second I realised an unmistakable truth,

No matter what they said I knew they were wrong,

Whatever would happen we’d get along,

Be friends, confidants, my cigarette and I,

A kiss on my lips and now a tear in my eye.

I must say goodbye to a favourite friend,

A romance I believed would never end,

Like a mistress who poisons me day after night,

I need to let go but I don’t want to give up the fight,

I want to take you and hold you bring you to my lips,

Like a kiss from a lover you’ll always be missed.

And if we should meet in a pub or a club,

Excuse me for ignoring you, my darling, my love,

One kiss from your lips there’d be no going back,

We’d be dancing and talking and starting to laugh,

About all of those times I held you, we kissed,

A kiss on my lips I still remember that kiss.

Betty Blue

“Hold me.”

Seeing the girl he loved lying on her bed, her face wracked with pain, forehead dripping with sweat, her body burning up, Tomas cursed them both for the choices which had brought them here. But recriminations could wait she was all that mattered now and so he raced to the bed to throw his arms around her. “Its Ok I’m here,” Tomas told her “I’ve got you.”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I do with all my heart. You’re all I’ve got, you’re all that matters to me.”

“But what about your exams they’re important.”

Stroking her hair Tomas tried to put a reassurance into his voice he didn’t feel, “I’ll be OK. Like I said you’re all that matters to me. My exams they’re not important. Are you all right?” Worried Tomas pulled back as her body convulsed in pain and seeing the pain in her eyes he wanted to cry.

“It hurts so much can’t you make it stop?”

“You know we can’t its got to be this way.”

“But please, it hurts.”

For a brief moment he could feel the pain in her voice battering down his resolve as he considered relenting, maybe just once wasn’t it better to ease the pain? Surely it would be better if they took it one step at a time. “No,” it took so much effort to say such a simple word, to deny her anything but it had to be this way.

“Please!”

Shaking his head Tomas cradled her in his arms, “we can get through this together” he told her. “It’s me and you we can get through anything,”

 “Fuck off” she screamed as she pushed him back onto the bed and started to flail wildly at him, her fists striking his face so hard he had to cover his head in self defence. “You don’t know what its like for me you fucking bastard. Fuck you!” Her energy spent she collapsed on top of him and as he felt her sobs on his chest Tomas wrapped his arms around her and wished tonight was at an end.

Why tonight? Tomas wondered to himself why couldn’t they have waited until after he had finished his GCSE’s? Because she might not have survived that long and a life, her life was more important than whatever the future had install for him. What had brought them here? Stupidity, too much money and a desire for something different, he tried not to laugh, not wanting to disturb her now it seemed she was finally getting some sleep. But weren’t they just being teenagers? Experimenting but her need for greater and greater thrills had brought her to this even though he knew that characteristic was what had attracted him to her in the first place.

His friends had laughed the first time they had kissed and he knew hers had looked upon him with disdain but weren’t they the archetypal new nineties couple? The rich kid and the bit of rough, he knew her father hated him, had tried to buy her away from him but as she started screaming once more Tomas thought wryly to himself that whilst he was here right now playing a game of chance with his future where was Daddy? Not even she knew that!