I Don't Love You Like That

by Paul Condrey

"Come on down here and lay with me," she spoke softly from the floor across the room, a small sliver of light full up with dust and cigarette smoke illuminating the soft features of the most beautiful face that I've seen with the saddest smile cut jagged across it. Machines are busy across the globe twisting in and out of themselves and we lay here entwined on the floor of my apartment, breathing smoke and exhaling fire, holding each other like teens do in the sweaty backseats of trucks and parent bought sports cars, running their slender fingers down spinal cords and across thighs in some quixotic attempt to feel. She always told me that she wouldn't let the world pick here apart in pieces. She had planned for long before I had met her on going out all at once, a light snuffed out by black. The evening was brushed with fog and foreboding when we burned all of our receipts and finished off the pot, flushing the ashes and empty bags down the toilet with just cigarette butts and empty feelings left in the room. Just French inhales and fucking.

6S

Paul Condrey finds himself residing in and around Orlando, Florida 342 days out of the year.