The city was bathed in amber light, and the stench of garbage filled the air as she stumbled through the cracked pavement, the heels of her boots clicking out a chaotic chatter. He was already there, leaning against a rusted fire escape, a cigarette dangling from his lips like it was holding together the last frayed threads of his existence. Their eyes met two predators caught in a trance of fatal attraction, and neither blinked first. She wanted to spit venom at him, scream about everything he’d broken, everything he’d stolen from what should’ve been theirs, but all she could do was smile that crooked, dangerous smile that told the world she was all in, even if her heart was shredded into a thousand forgotten pieces.
He smelled like the saltwater air, spray paint, and a hint of Chimay that clung stubbornly to his skin. The kind of scent that burned your nostrils and haunted your dreams. She noticed the mural on the alley wall and knew the artist.
Caught like a secret ritual between lost souls. When he stepped closer, the sharp tang of leather and lace hit him with the force of a fist. It was a raw, brutal kind of intimacy, the kind that tasted like regret but burned like desire.
Their conversation was a twisted dance, words flying fast and reckless like bullets, punctuated with silence so thick it was almost suffocating. He spoke of escape, of drowning the ghosts in more potent poison, and she talked back with that biting wit that only people who’ve been burned over and over can muster. Neither one expected salvation or absolution. This was the fight, the savage, tender war between two hearts that had forgotten how to beat in sync.
“You know,” he said, voice gravelly and low, “we’re just scars in the dark two halves of a broken map with no damn direction. But Lord, I’ll remember the flame, the spark. Even if we drown in this wreckage called affection.”
She laughed a harsh yet subtle sound that rattled in her chest. “Maybe we were poison in each other’s veins,” she said, “but hell, it was the sweetest goddamn taste. A ride too wild to forget, even if it left us fucked and hollow.”
For a moment, they just stood there, two wildfires threatening to consume everything, yet clinging to the fragile warmth of a shared madness. The night pulsed around them with the rhythm of distant sirens and the low hum of a city that never seemed to care. The taste of spilled wine and broken dreams hung heavy in the air. Somewhere, a subway train screeched, grinding against the rails like a scream from the past.
He reached out, fingers brushing a stray strand of hair across her face, a touch so fleeting it might have been a ghost. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, tasting the bitter tang of tobacco and the faintest trace of desperation. It was the kind of moment that could have been beautiful if it hadn’t been soaked in so much poison.
“You’re trouble,” she whispered, a confession and a curse all at once. “Yeah,” he grinned, “but you’re the kind of trouble that ruins you for anyone else.”
They moved like two dancers spinning on broken glass, neither sure who was leading or following. The streets echoed with their laughter and curses, their footsteps tracing patterns only the night could understand. There was no future in this madness, no promises except the ones whispered in reckless abandon and drowned in fleeting ecstasy.
As dawn threatened to bleed into the edges of the sky, they knew their time was running out. The city was waking up, indifferent and relentless, ready to swallow them whole. She slid a hand into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He offered her one, and the spark of the lighter briefly illuminated their faces, raw, tired, and defiantly alive.
They smoked in silence, sharing the fragile embers as if they were a lifeline. Somewhere behind them, a dog barked at the rising sun, and a distant church bell tolled a mournful song for all the lost souls who’d come and gone without a trace.
“You ever think about what happens next?” she asked, voice barely above a breath.
He shrugged, the weight of a thousand bad decisions settling on his shoulders. “Guess we wait and see. Or maybe we don’t.”
The bitter taste of Chimay and red wine lingered in the back of her throat as they parted ways, her figure swallowed by the shadows, his silhouette swallowed by the cold light of a city that never sleeps but always forgets.
They both knew this was the end of the line, but it was also the only kind of beginning they could handle. The cruel irony of loving someone so completely you have to let them go, the madness of clinging to the memory of a flame even when the ashes sting too much.
Weeks later, he found himself alone in a dive bar, where a barmaid was serving him bourbon and a jukebox played songs about heartbreak and sin. The air was thick with stale smoke and spilled desire, the kind of place where regrets hung heavy and no one asked questions.
He stared into the bottom of his glass, tasting the bitterness of what could have been, what should have been. The room buzzed with the hum of lonely conversations and half-forgotten promises.
She was somewhere out there, lost in her entanglement of dreams and demons, carrying pieces of him like shards of amber in her pocket. Maybe she was laughing with someone new, perhaps she was drowning in the same poison that kept him alive, but barely breathing. Neither of them had the luxury of hope, only the cruel comfort of memory and the jagged edges of what they shared.
Sometimes, late at night, he caught himself talking to ghosts in empty rooms, trying to make sense of the wreckage. He told himself stories to fill the silence, convincing himself that maybe, just maybe, there was a way out. But the truth was a slow-burning fuse, and the explosion was already inevitable.
She was the wildfire he couldn’t put out, the chaos he embraced even when it tore him apart. And he was the shadow she chased, the echo of something wild and broken that neither could escape.
In the end, love wasn’t about rescue or redemption. It was about the beautiful destruction of two souls willing to burn themselves raw to feel something real, even if it meant being alone in the ashes. And in a city that never forgave and never forgot, that was the only kind of truth worth holding onto.
- m y t h o s { street artist of wanton)
“When loving you was the only addiction I couldn’t quit.”
