He hangs up the phone, whispering words that will die with the connection. He speaks them for her, but emptiness receives them. Three more broken dreams drift in the dark, caught by dream-catchers hidden in pillow covers. He checks the time- 12:23 –and sighs. But this release is one of content, for he cannot foresee the coming disappointment, the impending heartache. She told him everything- more than he wanted to know –and he loves her all the more for her bluntness. Dark secrets slid from her mouth, toxic vapors hissed on her drunken tongue, transforming into soaring sonnets and intoxicating wine when they reached his ears through the plastic receiver miles away. They linger in his mind, and, while he knows he should resist, the thoughts of wasted twilights and his hands on her soft skin tempt him.

As he begins to drift, his mind looks forward to the coming days. Alluring messages promise lunch, dinner- a chance. Happiness can’t come that easily, it never has. That constant battle between mind and heart- between reality and the fictitious world he writes for himself –wages all the more fervently in him, shredding hope and patching it up again with the memory of their conversations. She trusts him; she needs him. He can shoulder her burden, and is all too willing. He begs to carry her baggage, weighted parcels polished and trimmed like Louis Vuitton luggage. These thoughts in mind, he presses his body back onto a mound of pillows and sheets- his nocturnal cocoon –while blue dreams drown her image.




Tonight, he won’t touch his phone. Tonight, no pixilated promises linger on the glowing screen. The voice had warned him that no pauper could win the heart of a princess, and now Juliet’s found-out deceit sent Romeo virgin to the grave. He longs to wrap a trench coat around his naked body, run to the tarmac and stop her abrupt departure, but in his heart he knows it is futile. Thursday. She had lied, her gilded words baffling him, melting through the wax he had stuffed in his ears to protect his heart from such a siren. Wednesday. She rewrites her story for the first and last time, knowing his pathetic devotion will linger long after her plane has taken off. She munches on salted peanuts in first class; he devours Chunky Monkey as a jet’s engines roar in the distance.