I should take up smoking.Mary leans forward as she sits on the side of the curb, braless in her wife beater. She takes long, languid drags on her cigarette, dripping ash on wet asphalt.

It is mid August and summer has lost its charm. If it were still early, Luke and I could take a trip to the lake where we would listen to the soft hum of crickets, take tentative sips from a bottle of white wine, and gracefully devour one another's secrets and little lies as only best friends could. (This was before Luke ran away from home and Mom stopped leaving the house.)

Mary keeps twisting that cigarette expertly between two fingers. She rolls her eyes and shakes the sweat out of her hair. The sun spills over us like too much champagne, and Mary doesn't even bother squinting. She just stares into the distance, waiting for time to start going again.

I am barefoot, and my toes look odd and artificial, wriggling through the grass. I feel small, childish, like I don't know what to do with my hands, and wonder if maybe it still isn't too late to bum a cigarette off Mary, even though I know that it is.

The stagnant air smells like dried sweat and sour milk.

Tomorrow there will be fire trucks and three days later mom's voice on the phone begging me to come back. Now, everything is peaceful, quiet. Mary turns her lidless eyes like wingless butterflies, sucking the last residue blue smoke from her fingertips.

In the distance children are laughing.

It is winter now.

Where have the cherry blossoms gone? The mysteries hide under the snow, little secrets. The fires burnt out where we left them. It is serene now, calm, dead and very beautiful. The window is asymmetrical.

The remnants of last night lay panic-stricken on the floor -- bad poetry and jeans and condoms, large red wet spot where we dropped the bottle of red wine. I laugh and mention how expressionists saw love as essentially vampiric, and Jared takes another drag on his 300th cigarette and tells me I looked sad.

Now that I am pretty, it doesn't seem important. I remember the hours Mary and I would spend in front of mirrors, wet with rouge. Time we spent primping before sitting out on that curb, blowing kisses to the passing traffic and whispering about secret loves. Time passed more slowly then. Things seemed simpler, direct. Now I read Neitszche and paint. I sleep late on Sundays. I buy organic and talk politics over cappuccinos and am learning to play chess. I am broke. I speak in a sentence structure that is too long and littered with enough poetic drivel to smother a small child, and that's OK because I am pretty, which thereby lends my erratic voice some kind of credence and charm.

If I started smoking now maybe I could get to heaven faster.

Slice of life: Mom called and our conversation sounded like a death rattle.

8 a.m. and too little sleep for too many days ... I start crying.

"Are you all right?" she asks.

"I don't know." Things just seem so, so strange right now. I just want the pain to stop, you know? I just want things to be simple again. I am half coiled in a fetal position, sobbing into the receiver. "I love you. And I'm sorry. So sorry. I want us to be a family again. I want you to be happy. I want Dad to be happy. I want Sam to get a job and find himself a nice girl. That's all he ever wanted. I want us to be together again. I'm sorry I ran away."

Dead silence.

"Are you eating enough and getting enough sleep, honey? You just sound really tired."

I realize I sound ridiculous.

So much love and so much pain and no place to put it.

I just turn up the volume until I don't hear my mother calling. Till Mary and I pull out of the driveway and start going west. The sun is setting slowly, and at this point Mary tells me to stop talking in fucking metaphors like I think I am so smart. She laughs hideously.

Time is passive-aggressive.

Because these days move slow like honey. Jared picks up cigarette 301 and holds me close. A single naked bulb fills the room with a harsh cold angle of light, violently breaking apart the subtle darkness. He shuts his eyes, inhaling poison. I am in love with every breath.

I keep telling myself it's not summer anymore.

I just still don't know where to put my hands.