If blood came solely from my chapped lips and the spit that issued from them,
maybe you'd know I meant it.
The force that only comes from the letter 'f' flung forth with great ferocity.
The fear induced by a sudden change in the airs humidity.
The fever that comes from fire stoked in between my four burning lids.
Pardon me for feeling such things,
for facing the truth that is the sham of these past few days.

"Forever my *** you fake *******, clean your face and *******."

confined to your own head, you might as well be a steam engine.
burning little holes in your turncoat.
making new friends in old dens.
masking proclivities.
barking at intruders like a dog.
what caused her, so many times,
to remove herself from the same line of thinking?
the man with the cocktails doesn't know,
but he knows the solution.
the solution to all life's problems,
to be imbibed and controlled.
the embrace for the embittered.
the fuel for the fire.
the stoke for the engine
the energy to keep chugging along at a good clip.

If I'm going to survive the night, I'm going to do it with grace.
No more head tilted slightly resting on ***** bar tables.
No more pirouettes into the sidewalk.
No more fingers ****** into the air as a universal sign for more.
Give me more than this.

If I'm going to survive the night, I'd like very much to do it with class.
No more slurred speech.
No more mangled sentences.
No more off-tune renditions of 'Under Pressure' while I try desperately to keep from falling under the table.

If I'm going to survive the night,
(though at this point it seems unlikely)
I will not tout my youth in front of older strangers,
waiving it in the air like a gun as if to say,
'Who wants any?'

If I survive the night, I will have survived it with my dignity.

That's why I'm so desperate to die.

If someone's going to write me a novel I think we should title it 'Girl Crashes Into Windshield'
Then everyone would be intrigued by the violence of the whole thing.
Then maybe, also, you can use that old photo of me as a reference point.
With a dramatic asterisk next to it that says before.

That will get 'em going.

The first line would be something like, "Death is such an ugly word."
Then we could detail the effects of having your face smashed in at 70 miles per hour.
Make some remarks in scientific terms about trajectory and blunt force.
Get some of those good 'like an egg on a sidewalk' analogies too.
End it with 'had she only stepped into the street two seconds later'.

Now we're gettin' somewhere.

The whispers of bestseller start to breed in the aisles of Barnes and Nobles' everywhere.

Because everyone loves a good car crash.