The crash leaves few survivors,
Sheet covered corpses
Littering the highway's shoulder,
They survived, but can they face tomorrow.

Tears waterfall down both faces.
Her hand entwined with his,
As the obstetrician lets them know the truth.
They won't ever reconcile this loss.

Her hair was lost in weeks, after her 19th birthday,
Her boyfriend weeks after that.
She would beat the diagnosis.
But would have to wait to heal from the other.

At the window he sits, a boy waiting
This makes it four hours now
Father told him he'd return tonight
As morning comes, the boy still sits, still waits

We all wait, our twisted wrecks of symmetry,
Untwisting, to get us back to normalcy.
We'll never be normal again.
But untwisting our scars, our dents, our pain,
We carry on.
We survive.

She had stumbled out of his car,
But he took her by the hand.
She had felt chosen.
Her prince re-perched her on her heels,
And so they went.

Arm in arm they traversed the cobblestoned-night
Meeting friends,
They laughed to tears,
As their glasses went dry and were refilled.
Perhaps too often.
Her legs wobbled when they told everyone goodnight
Pecking each blurry face on where their cheeks were supposed to reside.

Her arm again in her prince's they made their way back to his car.
The journey feeling longer than the last.
Scuffing toe and heel often enough for her to carry them in her free hand.
He opened the car door again for her
This time aiding her more.
As she slumped into the front seat,
She giggled as
Her fingers had forgotten their job.
So the prince reached over and fastened her seatbelt.
Strange that her safety was of his concern at that moment.

The ride to his apartment was shorter
One could say that parts were skipped, blurry, or simply missing,
But she knew that the car stopped.
And that their plan,
to Netflix the night away
Had better happen soon,
As she felt each evening imbibement swiftly catching up to her.

He carried her up the 12 steps to his apartment where his roommates waited around a television that seemed to sway?
Or was it just her?
She gladly accepted a glass of wine
As the movie began.
Her prince, gently handing the fluted glass,
Was measured in his approach.

As the movie progressed so did his predatory instinct.
First arm to shoulder,
Then hand to hip,
And finally hand to thigh.
His lips found her ear
Whispering an invitation
Which when sober,
she would have rebuffed.
Still she managed to shake her head
And say something that sounded like
"NoIdonwantotonigh, lesjusfinish themovie"
Audible enough for his roommates
To laugh about.
As her volume at this point was uncontrolled.

So he waited
and watched the film.
All the while watching her lips on her glass.
And her eyes glassy
Lids heavy
Head resting
On his shoulder.
Whether conscious or unconscious,
He took her to his room
His roommates forgetting.
That they had been humans before
They had been his friends.
And as the upstairs door slammed shut
They realized that prince wouldn't be returning that night.
Chivalry and valor had been outweighed by friendship.
The Devil's Deed was Done.

"For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing."
Simon Wiesenthal

Thank you, Thomas Edison, for your invention.
That we may use it as an analogy
In perpetuity.
In concept.
In cartoons.
No risiduals earned on this I'm afraid.
Epiphanies are so rare there would be little earned anyway.

They come on like rushing wind
Some we are lucky enough to grasp.
Pet Rock.
Chia Pet.
The Snuggie.
Others are squandered.
At the bottom of a bottle or glass.
Lost in the illegible syntax of a bar napkin.

Thomas Edison once bemused that he never failed.
He simply found a new way it wouldn't work.
What I wouldn't have given,
to have been among,
his bar napkins and empty bottles.

On our walk today,
You told me you loved him
And I vomited,
In my mouth,
Just a little.
Forcing the putrid liquid back down,
I feign support.
"Really that's great?"
Are the words that escape.
Replacing the aftertaste--
Of the ones still stuck in my bile.
Ones tasting like,
"Why can't you see my love?"
and
"What does he have...
That I don't?"
My emotionally caused nausea
Goes, thankfully, unnoticed.
As you are still lost,
In thought or lust.
I can never tell.
As we continue walking,
My stomach calms.
We acknowledge life's beauty,
In trees, in birds, in clouds.
While I am forced
To disregarded its greatest,
You.

I thought we'd see the sunrise.
I thought we'd weather the storm.
Does it matter what I thought,
Since now you're gone?
Lost in a sea of everyone
You, my message in a bottle,
Float aimlessly away.
The sea closes around me.
Still, perched on my island,
I hope for a glint from your rim,
More than the beauty of the next sunset.
And, as your gorgeous glint passes over the horizon.
I beg the tide to change.

"Their faces change into one of disgust
And their mouths only open to spit out venomous words
As the tears that have betrayed me, roll down my cheeks,
They point and laugh.
Yet the water that escapes my eyes is all for show,
Only for their satisfaction.
As I turn and run down the hall,
A grin overcomes my frown.
I laugh it off as I skip home,
Forever never living in doubt"