His name was Adam Chester,
          and I killed him.

He was something early thirties
still built like twenty-two.
His eyes were as green as life
and the corners of his mouth could
shine enough certainly to
photosynthesize.

He was dying.

I was something late twenties,
young enough in Hollywood
to still be exposing my ******* for parts.
My hair still had more red than shame,
and my body still looked like a
parenthetical aside
in all the right places.

I had never felt more dead.


He said he saw me in some room
with some people sometime
and that the spark in my eyes had
restarted his heart,
cause he was surely dead,
just waiting to die.
I said I understood,
and I drank daiquiris.
Later, he would tell me
my skin felt softer than the
Egyptian cotton sarcophagus
entangling our legs,
that my lips tasted like cherry,
my breath like alcohol,
and my skin like so many
     squandered summer nights,
     bikini tops and Tanqueray,
     riding solar flares between friendships
     and not taking no **** from no one.

For weeks and months we were together. He didn't seem to be wasting any way but spiritually, and I didn't seem to be wasting anything but time. He told me that everybody dies alone, and that he would give anything to break the trend. I told him that of course I would help, and that I didn't love him, but I loved the thought of him, and that in me that thought would live forever. I promised I would find a way. He would touch my hair and smile without showing his teeth - either because it seemed too aggressive or too disingenuous. He told me how our lives resembled Moulin Rouge, except that he was the one on the clock, and I just wanted to drink and ****, and that was precisely why he chose me; perhaps if he was never alone, he would never have time to die.


It was the kind of arid night that makes you want to water your plants compulsively.
The air had our lips cracking like sarcastic smiles
and skin too dry like a sense of humor,
unable to turn the pages of our paperbacks.
I asked him to be my chapstick.
He asked me to be his lotion.
I told him that he was gross.
He told me to go to hell.
               I told him...
          He told me...
     I told him...
He told me...
I told...
He...

I woke in the cold embrace of solitude.
She kissed my neck and called me Lover.
I told Solitude to leave me sleep.
She told me she was lonely.
Told me I was breathing, if barely.
More than could be said for some.
She kissed my neck.
My heart stopped.

Time flows not like grains of sand,
but like grains of wood,
back and forth, swaying, dancing,
some ****** understanding within itself
which we have no place in,
no fate with or without.
I saw him laying alone,
saw him stand beside himself.
Saw him wonder
where I had gone.
Saw him go.
Saw him, gone.
When you die alone, you leave even yourself behind.


I went back to bed,
back to my body,

where Solitude could have her way with me.