I
think
"I'm sorry,"
is what she said
to him.

She'd broken down
all lines of communication
and he was hungry
as hell
for her taste.



And what he said to her
was the most
bitter of all the greatest cover-ups.

"It's okay."

Bitter like scuppernogs
in North Carolina
when the sun reaches down
and burns sweetness away.

It was an assassination
of faith
that day
they lit two cigarettes
with one lighter.

That day
they sat outside on park benches
unearthing each other
while trying to hide.

"So," she said
to him.
"Did you know
that I can roll the tightest blunts
in the universe."

And he said something,
something
falsified,
something
calcified,
something
ha­rdened.

"That's dope."

Because the love drug
had taken all control over him,
and rage
couldn't come out of him,
he didn't have the spirit
or the *****
to say
that he'd drank himself to death
all day long
because he thought
she'd strapped on an oxygen tank
and flown to the stars:

Distant
as
a
supernova
burning holes in that
murky
purple
night.