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.

I.

This year I've done nothing remarkable,
because that wasn't on my syllabus.

But,

I did learn how to make conversation
with an empty locker,

because you weren't one of the students
who'd had gone off on Exchange.


  II.

This year I've done nothing worth remembering,
because my timetable had no place for memories.

But,

I did learn how to inject meaning
into moments were there were none,

because you weren't one of the poems
in my last English paper.


  III.

This year I've done nothing for my soul,
because I'm just a candidate number.

But,

I did learn how to learn how my examiners
think. Past papers are the future,

and you aren't one of those questions
that I'll get full marks for again.


  IV.

And this year,

time will pass itself,
killing everything

but my memories,
but my final grades.


V.

And this year,

time will have passed itself,
having killed everything.

Even my memories.
Even my final grades.

VI.

As everything

becomes everything again,
the year next;

with another you,
with another syllabus.

There is no whiskey in his room tonight...

Instead,
There is a half-empty glass of-
Rock shandy, Pepsi-cola, Dr.Pepper,
Or something black.
Something minuscule,
even though he has not sipped from it.
He has not looked at it- his tongue
Was only dry for two minutes before he
Locked the door.
For the only presence that made it hard for him to swallow
Was in the form of something that he was still trying to release...
at 2AM.
Release at 2AM.
There is a typewriter in front of him and he is feeling as permeable as
The glass that is sitting next to it.
'as permeable if it had a closed lid made up out of carbon' he thinks.
'Closed lid', 'Carbon',
'Closed lid'
He does not know what to type.
As distance diminished it's existence throughout the years,
He began to realize that Letters were starting to transform themselves
Into Diary-Entries and vice-versa.
The art of belittling seclusion through the method of fictionalizing himself
Was turning more into a hobby than an art and
he did not know what to do except to accept it as a tragedy
That nobody else needed to know about.
"Tragedy:" he types.
"I don't know how to forget about you."
'And etcetera,' he thinks.
In his minds eye he sees a girl in a school far away.
She's holding a camera and a textbook and a picture of a boy
That isn't him.
She's walking into her new life and one day she will go a week without
Thinking about how it feels to know interest and feel it shared
from someone who thought it never existed.
One day she will go a week without thinking about the boy who stared at empty pages
And wrote letters about bitter meals that his tongue thought could never be tasted.
One day she will go a week with just the thought of how glamorous a life spent alone is...
Before she meets someone there...
Who will make her taste something that is less bitter than him himself.
'I hope that's where my story ends.' He thinks.
And then imagines himself embedded into
Dark bitter things.
(Tobacco, caffeine, dark chocolate.)
He sighs and stares at the words he has already typed.
He can imagine these bitter things spilling into his glass and changing its taste with each
little drop.
"You were dead to me before you even walked out of the door..." He decides,
And puts it onto the paper.
He lifts the glass and takes a sip and then puts it back down again.
'One day she will go a week without thinking about me..."  He thinks.
Release at 2AM.

No matter how many miles separate us.
If you never speak to me again.

At least, I can take comfort in knowing
that when you've had your fill.
Faith lost, hope vanished from your heart
without a trace.
I know,
you'll look to the stars.
Only to see tens of thousands of them;
shinning brightly on the darkest nights.
Just for you.

And if this life is just meant to be a realm of torture.
A realm of apathy and discontent.
I find peace within my heart knowing
I'll be looking at the same sky, too.

my lips are chapped from kissing you,
i'll blame it on the winter blue,
an unseen taint upon my skin,
licked bruises bloom from deep within.
i should have known loose liquored lips,
would lead handprints upon my hips.
do you love the way i smile?
stay and laugh with me awhile?
i know you love to trace my mouth
i watch your gaze it  travels south
remember when you called me pretty,
here inside this broken city.
now we're back where we began
on trembling legs i stumble, ran
you are silent, say goodnight
i don't reply I'm not polite.