Been real before,
Now we're otherwise
or elsewhere.
Do you remember
all the time we spent
waiting to score?
Evening simmers
so sweet dusk
could hear her.

Yeah we knew what we were,
The world had nothing over us,
With less stress we were better for it.
We breathed in and I could feel how close
we were. It was real
and we were the best,
What was it that left us breathless?

the ashtray was looking more
and more
like a sick hedgehog
  
and her yellowed fingers
added one more quill to it
  
she sat back in her chair
  
work wasn't in the best of stages lately and
her office looked like a ******'s
trailer. You could
scrape the nicotine
off the walls. In fact, she
would get nicotine under her nails if she
just scratched her skin
anywhere
  
But otherwise she was
a beauty
and that was a problem. Beautiful
women have the worst
luck in marriages
  
The husband left and the two girls went
with him
They were sick and tired of her
habit to consume more cigarette smoke than
oxygen
  
And drinking was also a problem
though not nearly
as big
  
The worst drinking has ever done to her
was to make her lose
the driving license which she never
bothered to take back
  
The real problem was,
as always,
a lack of money. If the **** phone didn't
ring soon
she would have to **** someone
for a pack of cigarettes
  
Assuming she could still
****
someone with her body rotting from the
inside. She was fine with
breast cancer
but now lung cancer joined too
and it was by far nastier
  
Still
that was all right
It doesn't take a healthy body to pull
a trigger
  
And speaking of triggers
She opened a drawer in her desk
took out the gun
studied it
  
Not loaded
  
She browsed through the drawer
  
Only one bullet left. One single bullet.
These things cost money
too
  
**** it
  
But it's like they said back in
the mercenary camp
The last bullet is always preserved to be
used on the self
  
She loaded the bullet into the
gun
  
A life lived well is one
lived without regrets and without
ever asking for mercy
or feeling sorry for yourself
  
At 39
she had that. There was nothing
else to be taken
away from it
  
She put the gun to her
temple
  
Smiled
  
"Except for a final smoke."

She questions
All seeing and feeling
With hope for a future
She fights alone
And weeps in silence

We should listen

Deeply wounded she fights on
As parts of her die
Her vision never leaves the sky
Staring towards the heavens
With a prayer on her breath and resolve slowly weakening

We begin to hear

Small acts become large bolstered by numbers
She finds breaths become easier
Only as we fight for her soul
Can the world become whole

on a bed of quantum foam
clothed in pink noise
and enthalpic thoughts
dreaming of An Entheon lost