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Turkish Gold

This hit of Turkish Gold just might bring tears into my eyes. Tears of grief for the dead young boys replaced by empty reflections in the mirror, walking disillusion, trapped in the perpetual gray winter of the city. But this hit of Turkish Gold just might be me inhaling summer breeze. And if I close my eyes, I swear I’m back in South Padre Island, three lifetimes ago, when your hair dropped to your shoulders as did mine, when you revealed a pack of Turkish Gold and taught me to smoke. And I swear I can literally hear those songs we used to play, at night on the porch of my condo were we used to sit with some other kids to howl at that living, breathing, gleaming light that puts the moon to shame. And as I beg this artificial summer breeze to blow me away to somewhere warmer I remember the sweet and innocent time when we had to steal cigarettes if we wanted cigarettes, and I realize how much better things taste when they’re stolen, how much drunker alcohol gets you when you have to refill it afterwards with water before returning it to your father’s mini bar, how much looser those living, breathing, gleaming melodies get when the air is damp. I remember you, me, and your brother lying on the pavement of South Padre Boulevard, sometime between too late in the night and too early in the morning, your brother was bleeding for some reason, you were laughing for another, and I slowly dissolved and cradled among the particles of ocean water that floated about in the coastal air. But now, my hairline recedes along with the notion of invincibility that comes with youth. And I wonder what happened to all those howling kids, what happened to all those inches of hair betrayed and helpless on the barbershop floor. But now you laugh at my exaggeration, you point out my story’s just two decades long. And this hit of Turkish Gold just might make me realize that there’s no need to not be young. So to remember, when I feel old, all I need’s a hit of Turkish Gold.