Welcome to the city of ****** no need to know my name I'll be your tour guide.
Follow me as we stroll down ******* Boulevard where they live life so care free ***, drugs, ******, the daily routine.
Make a sharp left on SlutVille Road where prostitutes salute the almighty dollar.  Another hard left now we're on Addict Street where addicts get high to mask their pain. This city only has left turns, no right turns, no hope insight but anyway let's pay a visit to the ****** of ******.  Corrupt politicians, slimy city officials making profits off the plight of the people.

Written by Keith Edward Baucum

(The Art of Failing Goodbye)

I covet your closeness; how could I not? You were my world once upon a mime. Honestly. Though my pride will deny it, our demise left me discarded. Hiding amongst the few collateral souvenirs: stupidity and bitterness.

I bestowed to you the best of me; although you never asked me to. My heart, body, and soul - yours for the taking - a decision made on my own accord. Because you never asked me for any of it. You never asked me to do the things I did. But I loved you - innocent as that. Thus, relinquishing logic entirely.

Hardly more than a stranger, I felt I knew you; unaware of the lidded fabulist within. A mere tourist of my chassis; enthralled by my looks. Enthralled by just me. “In love” so deep, you attempted suicide twice. Upon my rejection – in theory. They almost beat you to death, and left you to the wolves. Deserved it? An understatement tenfold. And yet. My compassion was what saved you.

I protected the same entity who pulverized my own.

They all said you were no good – they said a mythomaniac would leach onto me until there was nothing left, ****** dry – then you would leave. Onto the next; life on the move. Daddy said you’d leave me in shambles. Was he right?

…Duh.

A question sheathed in rhetoric; absolutely. A black hole does not give back. Wake UP, m Maple – Ali – Oliver – whatever you are today.mWake up, you ******. And look here.

You ruthied(sp?) me last Halloween, took my body as your own, enabled a cycle I’ll no longer accept. The girl who cried ****…an alias to forever haunt me.

No one believed me then. Why would they now?

This final hurrah; a Halloween blackout. Wherein, you personified my worst nightmare. A cruel and unusual punishment – at best. And then.

You slithered and slinked away; no apologies – no goodbye for me. You’d taken all of me. Just like they said. All my value – dismembered and pocketed. Off you went…as predicted. Onto the next…life on the move.

You etched your gimmick; smuggling trust; squirreling intuition - these morals I'd entombed - you burrowed away. Promising Eden, you offered a map; directing me as I sailed the route. The garden, however, was not what I found. My catafalque(coffin) negated expectations you set; a utopia of dazzling, abundant nature. For, you'd devised a mousetrap; and I'd glissaded willingly inside…

For the very last time, gaze entwined. Blue on brown.

SNAP.

A blinding fall
reflected off lakes in greens and browns
almost a year removed
from wide-eyed walks across
the Borden Avenue Bridge,
counting steps and calculating
just how many sweaters
you’d have to layer for it to seem accidental.

November was dragging
and you weren't trying to impress.
You drove to school
and didn't go to class.
You thought I’m flexing,
you thought I’m finding my feet,
you thought thinking was overrated.

You smoked cloves on benches,
let bracelets rot off your wrists,  followed every ‘person
you may know’
on Twitter.

Holed up in libraries across the Shoreline, you read Vice,
posed for pictures with strangers
and made friends with Cat Marnell but she never texted back.
You played with words in a way that started to smell nice.

December was still lucent,
your curvy cheeks and sloping
thighs receded into something new-giggling and compact.
When you skipped finals
and failed every class,
you shrugged, deleted the emails
and got really into makeup.

Winter was a dizzy dazzle of
new pills and old clothes and
a pallor that crept just on the line of
***, glitter and death.

Some days you surface into,
and there's no distracting yourself from
that irrefutable inevitability that
- ultimately -
entropy will win.
No quantity of
authentic artisan coffee or online memes
or juicing can
pull you out of the
black hole gravity
of that one truth.
The evidence is everywhere:
the spiteful confusion of electrical cables
your sleep-stupid fingers
fumble and fail to untangle;
the mold on the bread you
swore would keep a few more days;
the putrid, burst-open remains of
a pink armchair, left to rot in a
stranger's front garden;
the scavenging army of crows that loiters,
waiting for you to die and, in the
meantime, walks ****** little footprints
around your eyes;
the oxidation of
so many dreams.

It's inescapable.
Might as well root for the winner.
Embrace the decay.
Take photographs of
rust, smashed glass, peeling paint, dead flowers.
Learn to love faded colours and the feel
of broken things.
Catalogue your most
interesting scars and mutilations.
And, while you can,
write poetry.