I rolled into town before dawn
Tired and hung over
And cranky
I had woken up nose to nose with a ***** ******* named Michelle
With whom I had downed more than a few litres of *** the night before
She had her ******* in a test tube nestled between her ****
I did not imbibe, it's not my thing
Let me drink
Let me drown
We are in the heart of paramilitary Colombia and I should not be here
Nose to nose
Drying residue on my leg
My pants by the window
My shoe in the sink
Michelle had gotten into a fist fight at a drag show the night before
Rolling up her sleeves
She took me away in a little white car with her other ******* friends
Into the night
Into pools of ***
And coke
And pesos misspent
I danced Vallenato with a crossdresser on a dusty floor in a bar on the black side of town
She didn't want to speak to me
So Michelle took me home
her home was a salon
Life imitating Art
And there we drowned.

In the afternoon I watched prisoners beg for their sanity in a building that reeked of ****
Barely enough water to drink
Tear gas in cages
Political prisoners or criminals
With homemade toothbrush shanks under pillows
Blood on the walls
Children in riot shields
A prison on an empty road
******* men scaled the walls to bring buckets to parched mouths
Bodies self scarred
dial telephones pulled between cells on ropes
Broken mirrors poking through bars to see who approaches
Broken inmates
Broken guards
At home that evening,
I missed being nose to nose with Michelle
But she never called again.