"My life is ruined, man",
he said, not having sipped his beer
or taken an anxious sip on his cigarette
in a hot second.
He was a stranger to me, breathed heavily,
overweight, but made of gold it seemed.
My friends were wasted and we were sitting on the roof
after a long night of them getting drunk.
"All our lives are ruined", I replied naively.
"But it's heroine man", he told me,
"Nine out of ten people addicted to heroine die from it."
He was right, at whatever right was.
"You're going to be that one, then.", my friend chimed in.
"I know, it just ***** everyone else is going to die", he continued.
I laughed.
"Don't laugh at that", I was reprimanded.

**** though, everyone else dies too.
I can't stand this place between dying
and being cripplingly apathetic about everything,
and most people I know live it. That edge.
I don't know a lot of people too excited about
waking up and going through the motions.
Most of us think about dying when we're happy;
not quietly into the night but quietly.
Just disappearing in a flash without light.
An instant, but quicker.

Well, not we
But you alone delayed
Those blurry red lines
That poured from
An officers light.

He pulled you from the grave
In the way
You pulled those stones
From the ground,
Pillbugs and all,
To call them boys
And count their fingertips.

Each had ten
While you had twelve
After the crash.
The car wrapped around the sharpest
Pole you could reach
(The car wrapped around,
Twisted like a cobra,
With poisonous barbs ready at will)
and spit you out towards the top.

You slowly slid down
Peg by peg, full with splinters,
Then the officer came
And let down his hair
To weave into yours.

After we went camping
The forest swallowed you whole
And the belly of the world
Was swollen with guilt.

After we went exploring
You swallowed your tongue
And your belly was swollen
With rage and your
******* with milk and metal.

It was the wild
(About which you had forgotten)
Which drove you to madness
And
It was the madness
That drove you to
Crash the car
Once before

And though I hope otherwise
We fear it will drive you
To crash again.

Well, not we
But I still fear for you.

I felt her presence,
hovering over my grave like a mothers last prayers
Like a fathers burning sorrows after thirty years drunk
Alone she stood, framed against the soft blowing trees,
and the dancing wildflowers that were placed as an ode to the dead
She held orange petals to herself,
close to her chest, as if to let them hear a heartbeat,
but the ear of a flower only picks up meaningful noises,
not the slow tempo of a withered muscle,
overworked from exhaustion

She wore black, knee high leather boots,
and a matching jacket
Her hair was wild, and she looked *****
She smelled of ***** and no showers,
cigarettes and sweat and blood
She looked of regret,
and her eyes sang tunes of pessimism
Anxiously she removed the bright flowers from her *****
Poppies, by the look of it
She presented them to the face of my headstone,
cracked and eroded with age, my name barely recognizable
Left with nothing, her fingers went to her short blonde hair,
matted and encrusted with dirt
She ran her hands nervously throughout, eyes constantly distracted

Suddenly, she focused ******* the headstone
A tear fell from her eye, and I watched it soak into the concrete
Her lips moved in familiar shapes, but words were lost to me
Every word
But one
A name

Abigail

And she turned away, walking crookedly into the wind and rain
And though I know she was talking to me,
I could feel the name on her lips, see it in her eyes
She scratched the insides of her arms as she disappeared from sight,
and I felt a longing in my own

"I walked away from myself that day. I gave it all up for hope. I guess this just goes to show what it's worth. Maybe I'll understand it one day, but for now, I am dead to everyone including myself."

Abigail Hollow
Jan 1992 - Aug 2008
A loving daughter, sister and poet.