When you told me that this was your seventh shot
With those pomegranate lips of yours
That drunken smile mixing with the salt on my brow
I knew you were trouble
Or to say I knew you were in trouble
Your laughter echoing hollow
And by the time we got to that party
Your legs were more like foreign languages
And your words sounded more like feet

The sweet slurring of your tongue
As you told me that you loved me
And I just laughed and dug deeper into the party
So by the time I had finished my first beer
You were leaning O so dangerously on the wall
As if it were your last chance to be vertical

I wasn’t that surprised to come outside and see your
Blue dress horizontal, bent over behind a car
And hear sweet sounds of your stomach crying for sanctuary
But when you fell forward like a tree alone in a forest
And you lay their like a dead dove
I knew we had a problem

Your head flailing back in my arms as I held you
The last bits of ***** falling like snow from your mouth
And you hung there like some angel
Beautiful
And maybe dying

Crying we carried you into the emergency room
Your eyes swirling like the night sky
All stars and shadows
The wheel chair your great cradle as you rocked your self to oblivion  
And they wheeled you away
And left us wondering at what kind heaven
Or hell you were venturing to

As you lay there
Shivering
Wrapped up tight so as keep your pretty heart
Pounding out the beat to your existence
We waited

Quietly at first

And then
Like cold beer glasses
The condensation of our eyes
Let forth in torrents of love
And hope and longing
For you to stop that quivering
For your eyes to return from their pilgrimage into the back of your head
For the earthquake in your hands to recede
For your mouth to regain that quiet smile
And I remember clearly
The urge to pray
I remember holding my head in my hands
And whispering to the lord
Whispering and begging
Knowing that this is wrong
And girls like you don’t die so easily

That’s about the time they told us we had to leave
And after our rioting calmed down
Into quiet murmurs
We piled into the cab
And left your
Golden face
Sleeping
Sleeping
Sleeping so that you could wake

But we didn’t sleep
And as the minutes stretched and hazed into hours
I thought of your smile
And the drunk way you said you loved me

Love be strong
Hold tight girl
We will be the dawn of your morning
We will be at your bedside by the first rays of light
Be strong girl
Be strong