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 Oct 2013 Heather Ann
Annie
the time spent hoping
for rain has been futile.
With each minute passing
second hand tumble our
memories become reduced
to questions, so as I’m
waking up in taxi cabs
wondering where the sky
went, I’ll think of your
lips ******* cancer and
your fingers holding
your future like a
crystal ball fortune
gypsy screaming “these
coming days will be
hard! Your lungs will
collapse and your heart
will turn to stone!”
But you smile and cough
and I imagine you
crying when I say
there is nowhere to go
from here. And now the
taxi man is demanding
a location, but I only
can give him snapshots
with sun-faded ink
cursive and he kicks me
out so I walk home
and try to sleep and
in the morning I forgot
what I did and who I
saw so I didn’t even bother
saying goodbye
 Oct 2013 Heather Ann
Brianna
Awkward side glances we tried so hard to never make eye contact it was almost as though we knew this would happen.
You asked was this pity on you?
I said never.
You said I could never love you.
I said forever.
You had dead eyes the night before I moved away-- more like ran away.
You asked what happened to you & I?
I said nothing great..
You said you never meant to make me cry..
I said it was already to late.
Awkward goodbyes and romance that faded too fast it was almost as though we knew this would happen..
 Oct 2013 Heather Ann
Shang
"listen to me!" his mother said
"If I see one more tear, you'll never see her again!"

the five year old boy's cheeks
still flushed
his eyes swelling like
a pop-knot
they are ****** red
his chest will surely
explode from the tension
any moment now

he clenches the tube of
ointment in his front pocket
of the new pair of jeans
his grandma bought him
on the way back from
North Carolina

the young boy wipes his eyes,
rubs the bald spots on his head,
noticing his last eyelash has fallen on
the last tear running down his
face

his grandma holds him tight, she says:
"I love you. I'll be back soon."

he can feel his mother's
needle-worn arms pulling him away.
he can smell her morphine sweat.
he can taste her oxycontin breath.

despite watching his grandmother
close the door of her 1990
green Beretta and drive
off Walnut Street and
down Oakford Ave--
the little boy
never cried
again.
(C) Shang
"Smoking is bad for you."
But so are you.
I breathe you in
deep into my lungs.
You fill my head
with pretty feelings.
You're killing me slowly.
Each time we meet
you touch my lips
and dive right in.
You set my heart racing,
making it hard to breathe.
You're my vice.
I need you
even though I know it's wrong.
I'm addicted.
© MAB October, 2013
 Oct 2013 Heather Ann
M
Filled with beauty turned to dust. Nothing more than a decorative edge. From up here I can see everything. From the false mountains standing in the distance that we could never reach,  all the way back to you. You, a single incendiary soul. Yes, I feel alive when I'm with you. Stuck inside a self-induced and shaken shell, and yes it hurts, but this pain is mine. There aren't as many earthquakes here. You're destroying the heart of the city, and I'm rebuilding what you've broken behind you. I know its not as beautiful,  but this was ours. This city was ours. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you here. This place is stained with our slumbers, our sins, and our love. This city was just too small for you. I have no doubts that many will come to love it here, maybe you'll even visit, but here is no place for the big things that you deserve. You walk above one-story houses and my hands are built for less. Someone will find love here. Sometime. And maybe they'll want to tear down these walls, and maybe I'll be trapped inside of a shaken, self-induced shell, and it will hurt, but the pain will be mine. I hope the world you seek houses and holds you well. I'll be here, in the place where we would meet, building every step I take around the world that was you. I have been hearing a song, a voice bouncing from every block and street light and I can barely make out the sound of the city you left crashing behind you.
I may be broken, my shelter may be tattered, but I call it home. I apologize. I'm sorry it's not beautiful here. I'm so sorry.
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