"doll face and a dance"
that was his way of describing her.
All the other inmates have heard his tale,
the ******,
the doomed love story.
They murmured about the "poor chap",
finding his beloved like that.
They stayed clear of him.

The man and the goat
were both slaughtered the same,
cut from throat to gut,
guts hanging,
blood pooling.
It was a cry to the gods.
A last resort.

The drunk man held his head in agony,
crouched next to his truck
the screaming filled every inch of his body,
the sobs, the moans of the mother
cradling her dead child, her only child.
Oh God, he just wanted it to stop.

a hopeless romantic's tears,
worthless in the world of stern faces
and college degrees.