I can tell you about the girl.

Her freckles were beige constellations,
and her voice was husky and rasped
like birds before the churning of a storm.

She was weird and laughed at everything I said -
which made her even weirder,
because I'm only funny in certain photos
and in certain clothes.

Her left arm was covered in scars and burns.
"As you can tell, I'm right handed," she said.
Arthritis surrounded her wrists and other joints,
and all I could think about were my
grandmother's arthritis crippled hands,
and if the girl would thank the arthritis, one day,
for no longer allowing her to self-harm.

One of her feet were bigger than the other
and, when she walked, she would lose balance.
"I'm not sure if the world is too fast
or if I'm too slow. Then again," she winked,
"it's probably because of my feet."
I liked her because she treated me like a person,
but didn't take me as seriously
as I took myself.

I struggled with self-respect
and she struggled with a drug addiction.
Her arm was needle park
and sometimes she missed ******
more than she missed me.

She wasn't the type of girl to shake
without her drugs -
she'd, instead, talk about them
like they were old friends.
She understood them
more than she understood herself.

After a few months of ***
and, "I'll be sad when you leave,"s,
I called her my girlfriend
and she smiled.
Flecks of speckled angles, bright,
I saw her, first, she accepted
my night.

Five days later,
she overdosed on morphine.
I picked her up.

Her eyes were glazed over.
I said, "I love you,
but this is *******."
She cried and said,
"Forgive me."

I lain in bed, next to her -
next to the avoidance of death.
She asked how I was
and I said, "Everything I write is ****,
but I'm glad I can write ****** poetry
about how we'll be okay."

She asked, "We will be okay, right?"

I hope.

The night before, she whispered,
"The quickest way to break a heart
is to pretend you have one."

Howling,
like you've never heard before.
And she sat next to me, radiating.
Her body jumped with every bump,
as foam blossomed out of her mouth.

And I promised her
that I would get her there in time.
And her dealer promised me
he didn't give her anything.

Howling.
I was howling,
like you and I have never heard before.
And her glazed eyes would open.
And my eyes were wide shut.
Her body lain crooked,
like the antenna of the wrecked car
my grandfather left me.

And I wondered if the planet
was moving too quickly
or if I wasn't moving fast enough -
before I decided the only time
that was real, was now.

Howling.
The police sirens were howling,
like the suburbs have never heard before.
The wails were begging me to pull over.
And the flashes of red and blue
danced across her ivory skin.
She mumbled to her deceased grandma,
and I asked her to stay.

And in that moment,
I tried to numb myself.
I tried to detach
and let the river carry me.

Howling.
I was howling,
like the deputy
had never heard before.
I begged for an escort.
I begged to go back into my car.
He looked at her knotted body
but didn't see her like I saw her.
And he told me to remain calm.
He told me to stop yelling -
but I couldn't express enough.
I couldn't release enough desperation.

And the river carried me
to the rocks before the fall.
At the bottom, I knew she was dying,
and this killed me, most of all.

Howling.
I was howling her name,
like she had heard before -
but not this time.
No, not this time.

The night before, she whispered,
"The quickest way to break a heart
is to pretend you have one."

O, ethereal Earth -
tortured town towering oneself.

Under Grace, thy swift death -
and upon mercy, a light, jest.

To be your Savior -
your only favorite -
is what's best.

I see how white light startles.
I snapped a pic and she spun in circles.
She wanted a photograph
to cover her mother's epitaph,
so she could have a laugh.

She smoked to get away -
but this isn't what'd she say,
exhaling, "All we are is carbon
and a lack of empathy."

We blended into hues of
microwave dinners
and church alters.
I used to tell her to go
just to halt her.

We prayed to get away -
but that's not what we'd say,
whispering, "Help us be more
than carbon and a lack of empathy."

And I want to tell her that I understand
what it feels like to be fake, insignificant,
and a shadow on the sidewalk of society.

And I want to tell her that I also borrow
the experiences of others --
that I, too, learn feelings
by stopping and staring at personal wreckage,
like a tourist of emotions,
like an inevitable wish of a human being.

Her ribs crackled, in the skeleton night.
And I remember my mouth on hers,
where atomic fish hooks attached our lips.
Where there was nothing like kissing
like our God wasn't dead.

She was accused of killing a taxi driver
in the Brazilian underbelly.
Smoking a cigarette, she dropped it on the ground,
spat on it, and crushed it with her bare foot,
saying she fell in love with the way
his sleep-drenched body lay.

And I told her to stay home.
And I told her that they'd find her.
But she didn't stay home.
And they did find her.

Chasing her through the Babylon brush,
insults were thrown and so were balloons of gasoline.
Each pink, yellow, and green vessel floated in the air, as an internal opera heightened.
And sour splashes spread across her body,
as she fled from the vigilante mob.

The children danced along the panoramic horizon she ran beside,
laughing, pointing, singing.
The slumbering sorrow of the situation became evident,
and she started to feel the calm of fleeting life.

Her dreams aborted and her ideals became fallacies,
and with the sound of fuzzy motors in the background, her heart leapt and her feet slipped.

Rope ate into her, wrapping her like the orphaned recklessness of each set of eyes that painted her.
She squirmed amongst the cheers.
She cried with every thrown beer and balloon.
The empty-eyed males gang ***** her.
The women covered the children's eyes,
and the children tried to move their mothers' hands.

And I pushed my way through the crowd.
And I saw her smothered in blood, beer, and gasoline.
I wanted to halt the hurricane that destroyed morality.
But I am a coward.
Frozen by my fear, I, too, am a murderer.
And a murderer I'll always be,
for the burning of all that was good.

Sudden flames soared towards the sky.
Laughter escaped as molotov cocktails exploded onto her body.
Her head turned towards the crowd,
as flames scampered across her face.
I saw in her, what I never saw before,
which was the human race.

Her eyes-chocolate I could melt in,
sparkling for me.
Her smile-the perfect curve upward,
touching freckled cheeks.
Her hair- sweeping, spiraling down,
cascading onto bare shoulders.
Her laugh-chiming notes,
echoing through quiet night to reach my ears.
Her love-arms embracing me,
soft touches filled with promise.
Her-a beauty so rare,
my breath catches in my throat when I see
her.

Summer breezes,
twilight starshine.
Vanilla candles burning,
ocean air at sunset.
Petrichor;
the smell of dust after rain.
Warmth of a fire,
cinnamon at christmas.
Waves crashing on the shore,
forest quiet filled with life.
The Essence of you.