Vegas Is A City Of Decaying Beauty; Just Like You

Vegas is a city of decaying beauty; Just like you. Vegas is fast, fickle and a mess of girls who are beautiful with men who are no such thing. But they can afford it. You, you are faster though, more fickle and you hang off the arm of a different man every week. Vegas is a city with beauty used as a concealer, to hide the blemishes of the darkness in the cracks. You, you are the same but you are so much more as well.

There is a lot I know about you, I know that you like your kisses rough and your coffee strong. I know that you think we deserve to live in a house with marbled floors with too many bedrooms to count. You say ‘I’ll make it one day, you’ll see.’ and I nod because this is you. This is you believing that what we had as a boy and girl growing up in a life filled with so much despair is not enough. This is you believing that I am not good enough but without you knowing.

You believe in fairytales, you believe that someday someone will come for you. That they’ll sweep you off your feet but that person can’t be me. Some one who isn’t me will come along and he won’t care for the mask of perfection you slip on every morning, he’ll care for that shining brightness within.

We lie on the bed, your body is pressed against mine and you fit perfectly in the crook of my arm. I pretend, if only for a few fleeting seconds that pass by too quickly, that you are mine.

“Oliver,” You say in a pitch below a whisper after I spent moments at conflict with myself (should I kiss you?). I nod, I trace careful fingers along the bronze of your skin while memorizing each imperfection and I murmur ‘Yeah,’ into your hair. our ‘Yeah,’ into your “One day,” You say and I want to say ‘I don’t care about the money, I care about what you’ve become’ but I don’t.

I don’t because you are Vegas and so much more. You are: Fast, fickle, beatiful and chasing lights that flash on legs that don’t properly work. I say: ‘One day,’ as well because this is me being everything you need me to be and nothing I want me to be. You press soft lips to mine, I pretend it means something more, you say I love you, goodnight and I pretend that you mean that sentence the way I want it to mean.

I wait until your breathing steadies and your body stills before I whisper into your neck ‘I love you’. Because it needs to be kept a secret from the moon, the stars, the clouds and oh, especially you.