"Tangerine" by Sydney V

On a metro bus he scribbled furiously into a notebook. A tall lanky, awkward, young man watched a beautiful woman from afar. She wore a orange tee shirt with writing he couldn't manage to read from as far as he stood. Her hair was tousled into a bun that drooped from the scalp of her head to the nape of her neck. Her hair a dark deep brunette. She looked awfully sad for, what seemed as the looks of such a beautiful day. Unsure if he was willing to risk the embarrassment to come if he would approach such a creature. His mind played out all the possible pity conversations and hypothetical awkward dialogue that they could exchange. So he just sat back in his seat and wrote some more about her. Her beautifully sad face. His awfully tattered, coffee stained, atrocious black composition barely held together held his beautiful lyrics and poetry. On this fresh page he wrote about her, and entitled it “Tangerine” . Midscribble he lost his train of thought. So he looked up to see her once more and she was gone. Frantically searching he saw her walking past the bus window. Headed north. He wrote of many beautiful women before but, there was something special about her beautiful scowl. A voice he would die to hear. He ran out of the metro doors and caught up to her. He stood only a foot behind her, he could hear her crying. He opened his mouth but nothing could come out. Feeling a presence behind her she turned around gawking up at this tall awkward man in a long billed hat. Immediately embarrassed the man turned around and walked away hoping she wouldn't notice. As he tried to make his great escape, the dilapidated book finally gave in. And all the bindings fell loose and the hundreds of rhymes he composed flew out. Contemplating leaving them he turned around without making eye contact he picked up the loose leaf papers. He could still see her Buster Browns in his peripheral vision, he arose seeing her holding the last one. “Did you write this” her raspy voice croaked. “Depends if you like it or not” he replied a little too quickly. She wiped a tear away. Her sad eyes brightened a little. “Uh i even wrote one about you, actually” filing throw the loose papers he found the piece he began that morning. He handed her the piece. As she read her eyes continued to brighten, in correlation his heart began melting. Her eyes darted up after she read 

“Measuring a summer's day, I only finds it slips away to grey, the hours, they bring me pain. Tangerine, Tangerine, Living reflection from a dream” 

“This is far too beautiful to be about me, but you hit a hammer on the head, who are you and what do you want from me?” her raspy voice seduced him. “I just wanted to know why such a beautiful girl looked so sad this early in the morning, on the looks of such a beautiful day. I’ll be leaving now if that would make you smile.” was his reply. “You’re not going anywhere come breakfast is on me” She took him to her shady apartment in the streets of LA. She lacked much inventory, and since she invited him over for breakfast she cooked ramen from a dollar store, a special occasion. He found her house just as beautiful as her. She was metaphorically as well as literally a starving artist. Her raspy voice surely didn't lack talent but she lacked the “wow” factor(she called it.) The man wondered what could she possibly lack? They spent the day and evening together. The man truly believed he had found the girl, the girl he could write endless novels about. She sang his lyrics to him. Until he fell asleep into a deep lucid slumber. In the morning he awoke to an empty bed. He didn’t know if she had a job or not. Knowing he had to hurry and get to his, he scrambled out of the paper thin bed lacking sheets. He wrote his address on a napkin with a “stop by soon” and scurried quick to catch the bus. On the bus ecstatic and crazy in love he felt words combusting within him. He realized he did not have his notebook. He must have left it. Which meant he would see her again! She would bring it back and confess her love to him as well. And he would be happy and maybe the next person who saw her on that bus, would see her smiling. 
He never heard from her again. He waited everyday for the door to ring. 

It wasn’t until a few months later. He turned on his radio to hear a familiar lyric. 

“Measuring a summer's day, I only finds it slips away to grey, the hours, they bring me pain. Tangerine, Tangerine, Living reflection from a dream” 

He was then seduced and taken by the voice. It was her, it was her singing his songs. She finally had the “wow” factor she was once starving to find. He realized this is why she had gave him the time of day. That exact moment her eyes darted up from his page. He hadn’t left his notebook, rather it was stolen. By the love of his life. She used him. She stole his notebook. She claimed lyrics that he’d wrote years ago. His heart ached for her. His integrity yearned to expose her. For now she lived the life of luxury her sadden eyes once wept for. He wanted to claim his work. Not even to claim them but just to see her again. He couldn’t because he loved seeing her smile, her eyes illuminated, her happy. But most of all, he loved listening to her. (( credits to the Led Zeppelin song “Tangerine” that inspired me to write this, go listen to it ))