One beer.
One beer just won't do. It really isn't enough. On a sultry night, when the very air is thrumming and shimmering, it doesn't quench your thirst (no matter how much you tell yourself that it does). It makes you crave more. More beer, more everything. The taste evaporates off your palate slowly. Reluctantly. Like lovers relinquishing their grasp on each others fingers at the end of a lovely evening; before one of you gets out of bed in the morning.
Beer is mean. When it realises that you are serious; that you really, truly aren't going to follow up with another, when it doesn't get to glide past your lips, swish about your teeth and hit your throat again with all the wallop of a gastronomic "Hallelujah", then it becomes vindictive. And it takes revenge by drowning you in memories; of good times and better times. When it was the grease that kept the night, the laughter and the glow of camaraderie going on and on. You'll smile since you can't help it, but that's a mistake because the smile will trip you into falling down the spiral staircase of your head; back and back, as you search for the best times you've ever had. And of course, because they are the best times, you won't be able to remember anything except the morning after. Which, in normal circumstances, is the ideal way to remember them, if you know what I mean. Not now though. The beer doesn't care, however. You stopped at one, so it'll gift you the aftertaste and thoughts of friends, witty repartee, cutting, breathtaking humour, arm-in-arm stumbles down dark, empty lanes with the echo of your favourite songs ringing in your ears... and as a knockout reward, sudden, quicksilver exhibitions of of raw vulnerability by your buddies.
Your mouth craves a cigarette. Just the thought of a single puff. The warm acridity. The instant electric rush. A spark of imagined cool as your face is reflected in the light of the match. After which your eyes wander. Stare. Imagine. See. Unsee. Relive. Discover. Pause. Close.
Now you're craving a taste of the lips you spend so much time thinking about. The ones you want to bite into, slowly and gently, even as your hands involuntarily clench, hungering to explore in conjunction with your tongue. The sensation of a fleeting flicker.
All the while your ears wait to hear it. The gentle breath on the lobe; the totally, totally involuntary gasp. The sound of pleasurable surrender.
Your nose flares; tells you of many things. Musk. Sweat. The faint whiff of clean skin. Good perfume. Earthy darkness of tresses imprinting themselves on your lungs.
All of it drifts away, leaving you behind, empty and alone with your regrets.
One beer really isn't enough.
Song for the moment: Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen
One beer just won't do. It really isn't enough. On a sultry night, when the very air is thrumming and shimmering, it doesn't quench your thirst (no matter how much you tell yourself that it does). It makes you crave more. More beer, more everything. The taste evaporates off your palate slowly. Reluctantly. Like lovers relinquishing their grasp on each others fingers at the end of a lovely evening; before one of you gets out of bed in the morning.
Beer is mean. When it realises that you are serious; that you really, truly aren't going to follow up with another, when it doesn't get to glide past your lips, swish about your teeth and hit your throat again with all the wallop of a gastronomic "Hallelujah", then it becomes vindictive. And it takes revenge by drowning you in memories; of good times and better times. When it was the grease that kept the night, the laughter and the glow of camaraderie going on and on. You'll smile since you can't help it, but that's a mistake because the smile will trip you into falling down the spiral staircase of your head; back and back, as you search for the best times you've ever had. And of course, because they are the best times, you won't be able to remember anything except the morning after. Which, in normal circumstances, is the ideal way to remember them, if you know what I mean. Not now though. The beer doesn't care, however. You stopped at one, so it'll gift you the aftertaste and thoughts of friends, witty repartee, cutting, breathtaking humour, arm-in-arm stumbles down dark, empty lanes with the echo of your favourite songs ringing in your ears... and as a knockout reward, sudden, quicksilver exhibitions of of raw vulnerability by your buddies.
Your mouth craves a cigarette. Just the thought of a single puff. The warm acridity. The instant electric rush. A spark of imagined cool as your face is reflected in the light of the match. After which your eyes wander. Stare. Imagine. See. Unsee. Relive. Discover. Pause. Close.
Now you're craving a taste of the lips you spend so much time thinking about. The ones you want to bite into, slowly and gently, even as your hands involuntarily clench, hungering to explore in conjunction with your tongue. The sensation of a fleeting flicker.
All the while your ears wait to hear it. The gentle breath on the lobe; the totally, totally involuntary gasp. The sound of pleasurable surrender.
Your shoulders ache dully, like a blunt knife is pressing against them. You'd kill for a hug. The kind that ends in a moment but goes on
forever. You'll settle for a reassuring squeeze. A light brush of the
fingertips. Anything.
Your nose flares; tells you of many things. Musk. Sweat. The faint whiff of clean skin. Good perfume. Earthy darkness of tresses imprinting themselves on your lungs.
All of it drifts away, leaving you behind, empty and alone with your regrets.
One beer really isn't enough.
Song for the moment: Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen
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