I.

One night at the Troubadour I spotted this extraordinary girl.

So I asked who she was.

‘A professional,’

That was my introduction that on a scale of one to ten

there were women who were fifteens—beautiful, bright, witty, and

oh, by the way, they worked.

Once I became aware,

I saw these women everywhere.

And I came to learn that most of them were connected to Alex



II.

She had a printer engrave a calling card

that featured a bird of paradise

borrowed from a Tiffany silver pattern

and,
under it,

Alex’s Aviary,

Beautiful and Exotic birds.



A few were women you’d see lunching at Le Dôme:

pampered arm pieces with expensive tastes

and a hint of a delicious but remote sexuality.

Many more were fresh-faced, athletic, tanned, freckled

the quintessential California girl

That you’d take for sorority queens or future BMW owners.





III.

The mechanism of Alex’s sudden notoriety is byzantine,

as these things always are.

One of her girls took up with a rotter,

the couple had a fight,

he went to the police,

the police had an undercover detective visit

(who just happened to be an attractive woman)

and ask to work for her,

she all but embraced her

—and by April of 1988 the district attorney had enough evidence

to charge her with two counts of pandering

and one of pimping.

For Alex, who is fifty-six

and has a heart condition and diabetes,

the stakes may be high.

A conviction carries the guarantee of incarceration.

For the forces of law and order,

the stakes may be higher.

Alex has let it be known that she will subpoena

every cop she’s ever met to testify at her trial.

And the revelations this might produce

—perhaps that Alex compromised policemen

by making girls available to them,

—perhaps that Alex had a deal with the police to provide information

in exchange for their blind eye to her activities

—could be hugely embarrassing to the police and the district attorney.

For Alex’s socially correct clients and friends,

for the socially correct wives of her clients and friends

and for a handful of movie and television executives

who have no idea they are dating or

married to former Alex girls,

the stakes are highest of all.



IV.

Alex’s black book is said to be a catalogue of
Le Tout Los Angeles.

In her head are the ****** secrets

of many of the city’s most important men,

to say nothing of visiting businessmen and Arab princes.

If she decides to warble,

either at her trial or in a book,

her song will shatter more than glass.





V.

A decade ago, I went to lunch at Ma Maison,

There were supposed to have been ten people there,

but only four came.

One of them was a short woman

who called me a few days later and invited me to lunch.

When I arrived, the table was set for two.

I didn’t know who Alex was or what she did,

but she knew the important facts of my situation:

I was getting divorced from a very wealthy man

and doing the legal work myself

to avail lawyers who wanted to get a big settlement for me.


Occasionally, she said, I get a call for a tall, dark-haired,

slender, flat-chested woman

—and I don’t have any.

It wouldn’t be a frequent thing.

There’d be weekends away, sometimes in Palm Springs,

sometimes in Europe.

The men will be elegant,

you’ll have your own room

—there would be no outward signs of impropriety.

And you’d get $10,000 to $20,000 for a weekend.





VI.

The tall, slender, flat-chested brunette

didn’t think it was right for her.

Alex handed her a business card

and suggested that she think about it.

To her surprise, she did

—for an entire week.

This was 1978, and $20,000 then

was like $40,000 now,

I knew it was hooking,

but Alex had never mentioned ***.



Our whole conversation seemed to be about something else.



VII.

I was born in Manila

to a Spanish-Filipina mother and German father,

and when I was twelve

a Japanese soldier came into our house

with his bayonet pointed at us,

ready to do us in.

He locked us in and set the house on fire.

I haven’t been scared by much since that.



My mother always struck me as goofy,

so I jumped on a bus and ran away,

I got off in Oakland,

saw a help-wanted sign on a parish house,

and went in.

I got $200 a month for taking care of four priests.

I spent all the money on pastries for the parish house.

But I didn’t care.

It felt safe.

And the priests sparked my interest in the domestic arts

—in linen, in crystal.



A new priest arrived.

He was unpleasant,

so on a vacation in Los Angeles I took a pedestrian job,

still a teenager,

married a scientist.

We separated eight years later,

he took our two sons to another state

threatened to keep them if I didn’t agree to a divorce.

Keep them I said and hung up.

It’s not that I don’t have a maternal instinct

—though I don’t,

I just hate to be manipulated.



My second husband,

an alcoholic,

had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and possibly

—I never knew for sure—

had a big career in the underworld

as a contract killer.

Years before we got serious,

he was going out with a famous L.A. ******,

She and her friends were so elegant

that I started spending time with them in beauty salons.

They were so fancy,

so smart

—and they knew incredible people,

like the millionaire who sat in his suite all day

just writing $5,000 checks to girls.



VIII.

I was a florist.

We got to talking.

She was a madam from England

who wanted to sell her book and go home.

I bought it for $5,000.

My husband thought it was cute.

Now you’re getting your feet wet.

Three months later,

he died.

After eleven years of marriage,

just like that.

And of the names in the book

it turned out

that half of the men were also dead.

When I began the men were old and the women were ugly.



IX.

It was like a lunch party you or I would give,

Great food Alex had cooked herself.

Major giggles with old pals.

And then,

instead of chocolate After Eight,

she served three women After Three



This man has seen a bit of life

beyond Los Angeles,

so I asked him how Alex’s stable

compared with that of Madam Claude,

the legendary Parisian procuress.

Oh, these aren’t at all like Claude’s girls,

A Claude girl was perfectly dressed and multilingual

—you could take her to the opera

and she’d understand it.





He told me that when she was 40

she looked at herself in the mirror

and said

Disgusting.

People over 40

should not have ***.

But She Was Clear That She Never Liked It

even when she was young.

Besides, she saw all the street business

go to the tall,

beautiful girls.

She thought that she never had a chance

competing against them.

Instead,

she would take their money by managing them.





X.

Going to a ****** was not looked down upon then.

It was before the pill;

Girls weren’t giving it away.

Claude specialized in

failed models and actresses,

ones who just missed the cut.

But just because they failed

in those impossible professions

didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful,

fabulous.



Like Avis

in those days,

those girls tried harder.

Her place was off the Champs,

just above a branch of the Rothschild bank, where I had an account.

Once I met her,

I was constantly making withdrawals and heading upstairs.





XI.

We took the lift

and Claude greeted us at the door.

My impression was that of the director

of an haute couture house,

very subdued,

beige and gray, very little makeup.

She took us into a lounge and made us drinks,

Whiskey,

Cognac.

There was no maid.

We made small talk for 15 minutes.

How was the weekend?

What’s the weather like in Deauville?

Then she made the segue. ‘I understand you’d like to see some jeunes filles?’

She always used ‘jeunes filles.’

This was Claude’s polite way of saying 18 to 25.

She left and soon returned

with two very tall

jeunes filles,

One was blonde.

This is Eva from Austria.

She’s here studying painting.

And a brunette,

very different,

but also very fine.

This is Claudia from Germany.

She’s a dancer.

She took the girls back into the apartment and returned by herself.

I gave my English guest first choice.

He picked the blonde.

And wasn’t disappointed.

Each bedroom had its own bidet.

There was some nice

polite conversation, and then



It was slightly formal,

but it was high-quality.

He paid Claude

200 francs,

not to the girls

In 1965, 200 francs was about $40.

Pretty girls on Rue Saint-Denis

could be had for 40 francs

so you can see the premium.

Still, it wasn’t out of reach for mere mortals.

You didn’t have to be J. Paul Getty.





XII.

A lot of them

were models at

Christian Dior

or other couture houses.

She liked Scandinavians.

That was the look then

—cold, tall, perfect.

It was cheap for the quality.

They all used her.

The best people wanted

the best women.

Elementary supply and demand.



XIII.

She had a camp number tattooed on her wrist. I saw it.

She showed it to me and Rubi.

She was proud she had survived.

We talked about the camp for hours.

It was even more fascinating than the girls.



She was Jewish

I’m certain of that.

She was horrified at the Jewish collaborators

at the camp who herded

their fellow Jews

into the gas chambers.

That was the greatest betrayal in her life.



XIV.

She was this sad,

lonely little woman.

Later, Patrick told me who she was.

I was bowled over.

It was like meeting Al Capone.

I met two of the girls

who worked for her.

One was what you would expect

Tall

Blonde

Model.

But the other looked like a Rat

Then one night

she came out

all dressed up,

I didn’t even recognize her.

She was even better than the first girl.

Claude liked to transform women like that.

That was her art.

It was very odd,

my cousin told me.

There was not much furniture

and an awful lot of telephones.

“Allô oui,”



XV.

I had so many lunches

with Claude at Ma Maison

She was vicious.

One day,

Margaux Hemingway,

at the height of her beauty, walked by.

Une bonne

—the French for maid

was how Claude cut her dead.

She reduced

the entire world

to rich men wanting *** and

poor women wanting money.

She’d love to page through Vogue and see someone

and say,

When I met her

she was called

Marlene

and she had a hideous nose

and now she’s a princess.

Or she’d see someone and say

Let’s see if she kisses me or not.

It was like

I made her,

and I can destroy her.

She was obsessed

with “fixing” people

—with Saint Laurent clothes,

with Cartier watches,

with Winston jewels,

with Vuitton luggage,

with plastic surgeons.



XVI.

Her prison number was

888

which was good luck in China

but not in California.

‘Ocho ocho ocho,’ she liked to repeat

Even in jail, she was always working,

always recruiting stunning women.

She had a beautiful Mexican cellmate

and gave her Robert Evans’s number

as the first person she should call

when she was released.



XVII.

Never have *** on the first date.



XVIII.

There will always be prostitution,

The prostitution of misery.

And the prostitution of bourgeois luxury.

They will both go on forever.



“Allô oui,”



It was so exciting to hear a millionaire

or a head of state ask,

in a little boy’s voice,

for the one thing

that only you could provide

It's not how beautiful you are, it's how you relate

--it's mostly dialogue.



She was tiny, blond, perfectly coiffed and Chanel-clad.

The French Woman: The Arab Prince, the Japanese Diplomat, the Greek Tycoon, the C.I.A. Bureau Chief — She Possessed Them All!



XIX.

She was like a slave driver in the American South

Once she took a *******,

the makeover put the girl in debt,

because Claude paid all the bills to

Dior,

Vuitton,

to the hairdressers,

to the doctors,

and the girls had to work to pay them off.

It was ****** indentured servitude.



My Swans.



It reached the point

where if you walked into a room

in London

or Rome

as much as Paris

because the girls were transportable,

and saw a girl who was

better-dressed,

better-looking,

and more distinguished than the others

you presumed

it was a girl from Claude.

It was, without doubt,

the finest *** operation ever run in the history of mankind.



**.

The girl had to be

exactly what was needed

so I had to teach her everything she didn’t know.

I played a little the role of Pygmalion.

There were basic things that absolutely had to be done.

It consisted

at the start

of the physical aspect

“surgical intervention”

to give this way of being

that was different from other girls.

Often they had to be transformed

into dream creatures

because at the start

they were not at all



Often I had to teach them how to dress.

Often they needed help

to repair

what nature had given them

which was not so beautiful.

At first they had to be tall,

with pretty gestures,

good manners.

I had lots of noses done,

chins,

teeth,

*******.

There was a lot to do.



Eight times out of ten

I had to teach them how to behave in society.

There were official dinners, suppers, weekends,

and they needed to have conversation.

I insisted they learn to speak English,

read

certain books.

I interrogated them on what they read.

It wasn’t easy.

Each time something wasn’t working,

I was obliged to say so.



You were very demanding?

I was ferocious.



It’s difficult

to teach a girl how to walk into Maxim’s

without looking

ill at ease

when they’ve never been there,

to go into an airport,

to go to the Ritz,

or the Crillon

or the Dorchester.

To find yourself

in front of a king,

three princes,

four ministers,

and five ambassadors at an official dinner.

There were the wives of those people!

Day after day

one had to explain,

explain again,

start again.

It took about two years.

There would always be a man

who would then say of her,

‘But she’s absolutely exceptional. What is that girl doing here?’ ”





XXI.

A New York publisher who visited

the Palace Hotel

in Saint Moritz

in the early seventies told me,

I met a whole bunch of them there.

They were lovely.

The johns wanted everyone to know who they were.

I remember it being said

Giovanni’s Madame Claude girl is going to be there.

You asked them where they came from and they all said

Neuilly.

Claude liked girls from good families.

More to the point she had invented their backgrounds.



I have known,

because of what I did,

some exceptional and fascinating men.

I’ve known some exceptional women too,

but that was less interesting

because I made them myself.



Ah, this question of the handbag.

You would be amazed by how much dust accumulates.

Or how often women’s shoe heels are scuffed.





XXII.

She would examine their teeth and finally she would make them undress.



That was a difficult moment

When they arrived they were very shy,

a bit frightened.

At the beginning when I take a look,

it’s a question of seeing if the silhouette

and the gestures are pretty.

Then there was a disagreeable moment.

I said,

I’m sorry about this unpleasantness,

but I have to ask you to get undressed,

because I can’t talk about you unless I see you.

Believe me, I was embarrassed,

just as they were,

but it had to be done,

not out of voyeurism, not at all

—I don’t like les dames horizontales.



It was very funny

because there were always two reactions.

A young girl,

very sure of herself,

very beautiful,

très bien,

would say

Yes,

Get up, and get undressed.

There was nothing to hide, everything was perfect.



There were those who

would start timidly

to take off their dress

and I would say

I knew already.

The rest is not sadism, but nearly.

I knew what I was going to find.

I would say,

Maybe you should take off your bra,

and I knew it wasn’t going to be

beautiful.

Because otherwise she would have taken it off easily.

No problem.

There were damages that could be mended.

There were some ******* that could be redone,

some not

Sometimes it can be deceptive,

you know,

you see a pretty girl,

a pretty face,

all elegant and slim,

well dressed,

and when you see her naked

it is a catastrophe.



I could judge their physical qualities,

I could judge if she was pretty, intelligent, and cultivated,

but I didn’t know how she was in bed.

So I had some boys,

good friends,

who told me exactly.

I would ring them up and say,

There’s a new one.

And afterwards they’d ring back and say,

Not bad,

Could be better, or

Nulle.



Or,

on the contrary,

She’s perfect.

And I would sometimes have to tell the girls

what they didn’t know.

A pleasant assignment?

No.

They paid.



XXIII.

Often at the beginning

they had an ami de coeur

in other words,

oh,

a journalist, a photographer, a type like that,

someone in the cinema,

an actor, not very well known.

As time went by

It became difficult

because they didn’t have a lot of time for him.

The fact of physically changing,

becoming prettier,

changing mentally to live with millionaires,

produced a certain imbalance

between them

and the little boyfriend

who had not evolved

and had stayed in his milieu.

At the end of a certain time

she would say,

I’m so much better than him. Why am I with this boy?

And they would break up by themselves.



Remember,

this was instant elevation.

For most of them it was a dream existence,

provided they liked the ***,

and those that didn’t never lasted long.

A lot of the clients were young,

and didn’t treat them like tarts but like someone from their own class.

They would buy you presents,

take you on trips.



XXIV.

For me, *** was something very accessoire

I think after a certain age

there are certain spectacles one should not give to others

Now I have a penchant for solitude.

Love, it’s a complete destroyer,

It’s impossible,

a horror,

l’angoisse.

It’s the only time in my life I was jealous.

I’m not a jealous person, but I was épouvantable.

He was jealous too.

We broke plates over each other’s heads;

we became jealous about each other’s pasts.

I said one day

It’s finished.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say:

Break my legs,

give me scarlet fever,

an attack of TB, but never that.

Not that.



XXV.

I called her into my office

Let us not exaggerate,

I sent her away.

She came back looking for employment,

but was fired again, this time for drugs.

She made menacing phone calls.

Then she arrived at the Rue de Boulainvilliers with a gun.

She shot three bullets

I was dressed in the fashion of Courrèges at this moment

He did very padded things.

I had a padded dress with a little jacket on top.

The bullet

—merci, Monsieur Courrèges

—stuck in the padding.

I was thrown forward onto the telephone.

I had one thought which went through my head:

I will die like Kennedy.

I turned round and put my hand up in a reflex.

The second bullet went through my hand.

I have two dead fingers.

It’s most useful for removing bottle tops.

In the corridor I was saved from the third bullet

because she was very tall

and I am quite petite, so it passed over my head.



XXVI.

There were men

who could decapitate,

****, and bomb their rivals

who would be frightened of me.

I would ask them how was the girl,

and they’d say

Not bad

and then

But I’m not complaining.

I was a little sadistic to them sometimes.

Some women have known powerful men because they’re their lover.

But I’ve known them all.

I had them all

here.



She will take many state secrets with her.



XXVI.

I don’t like ugly people

probably because when I was young

I wasn’t beautiful at all.

I was ugly and I suffered for it,

although not to the point of obsession.

Now that I’m an old woman,

I’m not so bad.

And that’s why

I’ve always been surrounded by people

Who

were

beautiful.

And the best way to have beautiful people around me

was to make them.

I made them very pretty.





XXVII.

I wouldn’t call what Alex gives you

‘advice,’

She spares you Nothing.

She makes a list of what she wants done,

and she really gets into it

I mean, she wants you to get your arms waxed.

She gives you names of people who do good facials.

She tells you what to buy at Neiman Marcus.

She’s put off by anything flashy,

and if you don’t dress conservatively, she’s got no problem telling you,

in front of an audience,

You look like a cheap *****!

I used to wear what I wanted when I went out

then change in the car into a frumpy sweater

when I went to give her the money she’d always go,

Oh, you look beautiful!



Marry your boyfriend,

It’s better than going to prison.

When you go out with her,

she’ll buy you a present; she’s incredibly generous that way.

And she’ll always tell you to save money and get out.

It’s frustrating to her when girls call at the end of the month

and say they need rent money.

She wants to see you do well.





We had a schedule, with cards that indicated a client’s name,

what he liked,

the names of the girls he’d seen,

and how long he’d been with them.

And I only hired girls who had another career

—if my clients had a choice between drop-dead-gorgeous

and beautiful-and-interesting,

they’d tend to take beautiful-and-interesting.

These men wanted to talk.

If they spent two hours with a girl,

they usually spent only five or ten minutes in bed.



I get the feeling that in Los Angeles, men are more concerned with looks.



XXVIII.

That was my big idea

Not to expand the book by aggressive marketing

but to make sure that nobody

mistook my girls for run-of-the-mill hookers.

And I kept my roster fresh.

This was not a business where you peddle your ***,

get exploited,

and then are cast off.

I screen clients. I’ve never sent girls to weirdos.

I let the men know:

no violence,

no costumes,

no fudge-packing.

And I talked to my girls. I’d tell them:

Two and a half years and you’re burned out.

Save your money.

This is like a hangar

—you come in, refuel, and take off.

It’s not a vacation, it’s not a goof.

This buys the singing lessons,

the dancing lessons,

the glossies.

This is to help you pay for what your parents couldn’t provide.

It’s an honorable way station—a lot of stars did this.



XXIX.

To say someone was a Claude girl is an honour, not a slur.



Une femme terrible.

She despised men and women alike.

Men were wallets. Women were holes.



By the 80s,

if you were a brunette,

the sky was the limit.

The Saudis

They’d call for half a dozen of Alex’s finest,

ignore them all evening while they

chatted,

ate,

and played cards,

and then, around midnight,

take the women inside for a fast few minutes of ***.



They’d order women up like pizza.



Since my second husband died,

I only met one man who was right for me,

He was a sheikh.

I visited him in Europe

twenty-eight times

in the five years I knew him

and I never slept with him.

He’d say

I think you fly all the way here just to tease me,

but he introduced me

by phone

to all his powerful friends.

When I was in Los Angeles, he called me twice a day.

That’s why I never went out

he would have been disappointed.



***.

Listen to me

This is a woman’s business.

When a woman does it, it’s fun

there’s a giggle in it

when a man’s involved,

he’s ******,

he’s a ****.

He may know how to keep girls in line,

and he may make money,

but he doesn’t know what I do.

I tell guys: You’re getting a nice girl.

She’s young,

She’s pleasant,

She can do things

she can certainly make love.

She’s not a rocket scientist, but she’s everything else.



The world’s richest and most powerful men, the announcer teased.

An income “in the millions,” said the arresting officer.

Pina Colapinto

A petite call girl,

who once slid between the sheets of royalty,

a green-eyed blonde helped the police get the indictment.

They really dolled her up

She looks great.

Never!

What I told her was: ‘Wash that ******.’





XXXI.

Madam Alex died at 7 p.m.

Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,

where she had been in intensive care after recent open heart surgery

We all held her hand when they took her off the life support

This was the passing of a legend.

Because she was the mother superior of prostitution.

She was one of the richest women on earth.

The world came to her.

She never had to leave the house.

She was like Hugh Hefner in that way.


It's like losing a friend

In all the years we played cat and mouse,

she never once tried to corrupt me.

We had a lot of fun.


To those who knew her

she was as constant

as she was colorful

always ready with a good tidbit of gossip

and a gourmet lunch for two.

She entertained, even after her conviction on pandering charges,

from the comfy depths of her blue four-poster bed at her home near Doheny Drive,

surrounded by knickknacks and meowing cats,

which she fed fresh shrimp from blue china plates.



XXXII.

She stole my business,

my books,

my girls,

my guys.

I had a good run.

My creatures.

Make Mommy happy

Oh! He is the most enchanting cat that I have ever known.



She was, how can I say it,

classy.

When she first hired me

she thought I was too young to take her case.

I was 43.

I'm going to give you some gray hairs by the time this is over.

She was right.





XXXIII.

I was fond of Heidi

But she has a streak that is so vindictive.



If there is pure evil, it is Madame Alex.





XXXIV.

I was born and raised in L.A.

My dad was a famous pediatrician.

When he died, they donated a bench to him at the Griffith Park Observatory.



I think that Heidi wanted to try her wings

pretty early,

and I think that she met some people

who sort of took all her potential

and gave it a sharp turn



She knew nothing.

She was like a little parrot who repeated what she was supposed to say.



Alex and I had a very intense relationship;

I was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated,

so she was abusive and loving at the same time.



Look, I know Madam Alex was great at what she did

but it's like this:

What took her years to build,

I built in one.

The high end is the high end,

and no one has a higher end than me.

In this business, no one steals clients.

There's just better service.



XXXV.

You were not allowed to have long hair

You were not allowed to be too pretty

You were not allowed to wear too much makeup or be too glamorous

Because someone would fall in love with you and take you away.

And then she loses the business



XXXVI.

I was pursued because

come on

in our lifetime,

we will never see another girl of my age

who lived the way I did,

who did what I did so quickly,

I made so many enemies.

Some people had been in this line of business

for their whole lives, 30 or 40 years,

and I came in and cornered the market.

Men don't like that.

Women don't like that.

No one liked it.



I had this spiritual awakening watching an Oprah Winfrey video.

I was doing this 500-hour drug class

and one day the teacher showed us this video,

called something like Make It Happen.

Usually in class I would bring a notebook

and write a letter to my brother or my journal,

but all of a sudden this grabbed my attention

and I understood everything she said.

It hit me and it changed me a lot.

It made me feel,

Accept yourself for who you are.

I saw a deeper meaning in it

but who knows, I might have just been getting my period that day!



XXXVII.

Hello, Gina!

You movie star!

Yes you are!

Gina G!

Hello my friend,

Hello my friend,

Hello my movie star,

Ruby! Ruby Boobie!

Braaawk!

Except so many women say,

Come on, Heidi

you gotta do the brothel for us; don't let us down.

It would be kind of fun opening up an exclusive resort,

and I'll make it really nice,

like the Beverly Hills Hotel

It'll feel private; you'll have your own bungalow.

The only problem out here is the climate—it's so brutal.

Charles Manson was captured a half hour from Pahrump.



I said, Joe! What are you doing?

You gotta get, like,

a garter belt and encase it in something

and write,

This belonged to Suzette Whatever,

who entertained the Flying Tigers during World War II.

Get, like, some weird tools and write,

These were the first abortion tools in the brothel,

you know what I mean?

Just make some **** up!

So I came out here to do some research

And then I realized,

What am I doing?

I'm Heidi Fleiss. I don't need anyone.

I can do this.

When I was doing my research, in three months

I saw land go from 30 thousand an acre

to 50 thousand an acre,

and then it was going for 70K!

It's urban sprawl

—we're only one hour from Las Vegas.

Out here the casinos are only going to get bigger,

prostitution is legal, it's only getting better.





XXXVIII.

The truth is

deep down inside,

I just can't do business with him

He's the type of guy who buys Cup o' Noodles soup for three cents

and makes his hookers buy it back from him for $5.

It's not my style at all.

Who wants to be 75 and facing federal charges?

It was different at my age when I

at least...come on, I lived really well.

I was 22,

25 at the time?

It was fun then, but now I wouldn't want

to deal with all that *******

—the girls and blah blah blah.

But the money was really good.



I would've told someone they were out of their ******* mind

if they'd said in five years I'd be living with all these animals like this.

It's hard-core; how I live;

It's totally a nonfunctional atmosphere for me

It's hard to get anything done because

It’s so time-consuming.

I feel like they're good luck though....

I do feel that if I ever get rid of them,

I will be jinxed and cursed the rest of my life

and nothing I do will ever work again.



Guys kind of are a hindrance to me

Certainly I have no problem getting laid or anything.

But a man is not a priority in my life.

I mean, it's crazy, but I really have fun with my parrots.



XXXIX.

I started a babysitting circle when I wasn't much older than 9

And soon all the parents in the neighborhood

wanted me to watch over their children.

Even then I had an innate business sense.

I started farming out my friends

to meet the demand.

My mother showered me with love and my father,

a pediatrician,

would ask me at the dinner table,

What did you learn today?

I ran my neighborhood.

I just pick up a hustle really easily,

I was a waitress and I met an older guy who looked like Santa Claus.



Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina

in a transparent muu muu.

We hit it off.

I didn't know at the time that I was there to pay off the guy's gambling debt.

It's in and out,

over and out.

Do you think some big-time producer

or actor is going to go to the clubs and hustle?



Columbia Pictures executive says:

I haven’t done anything that should cause any concern.

Jeez, it's like the Nixon enemies list.

I hope I'm on it.

If I'm not, it means I must not be big enough

for people to gossip about me.



That's right ladies and gentlemen.

I am an alleged madam and that is a $25 *****!

If you live out here,

you've got to hate people.

You've got to be pretty antisocial

How you gonna come out here with only 86 people?

That's Fred.

He's digging to China.

You look good.

Yeah, you too.

It's coming along here.

Yeah, it is.

I wanted to buy that lot there, but I guess it's gone?

That's mine, man! That's all me.

Really?

I thought there was a lot between us.

No. We're neighbors.



He's a cute guy

He's entertaining.

See, I kind of did do something shady to him.

I thought my property went all the way back

and butted up against his.

But there was one lot between us right there.

He said he was buying it,

but I saw the 'For Sale' sign still up there,

So I went and called the broker and said,

I'm an all-cash buyer.

So I really bought it out from under him.

But he's got plenty of room, and I need the space for my parrots.

Pahrump will always be Pahrump, but Crystal is going to be nice

All you need are four or five fancy houses and it'll flush everyone out

and it'll be a nice area.

They're all kind of weird here, but these people will go.

Like this guy here,

someone needs to **** him.

I was just saying to my dad that these parrots are born to a really ******-up world

He goes, Heidi, no, no; the world is a beautiful garden.

It's just, people are destroying it.

I’m looking into green building options

I don't want anything polluting,

I want a huge auditorium,

but it'll be like a jungle where my birds can really fly!

Where they can really do what they're supposed to do.

There were over 300 birds in there!

That lady,

She ran the exotic-birds department for the Tropicana Hotel,

which is a huge job.

She called me once at 3:30 in the morning

Come over here and help me feed this baby!

Some baby parrot.

And I ran over there in my pajamas

—I knew there was something else wrong

and she was like

Get me my oxygen!

Get me this, get me that.

I called my dad; he was like,

I don't know, honey, you better call the paramedics.

They ended up getting a helicopter.

And they were taking her away

in the wind with her IV and blood and everything

and she goes, Heidi, you take care of my birds.

And she dies the next day.

She was just a super-duper person.



XL.

I relate to the lifestyle she had before,

Now, I'm just a citizen.

I'm clean,

I'm sober,

I'm married,

I work at Wal-Mart.

I'm proud to say I know her. I look into her eyes

and we relate.





I got out in 2000,

so I've been sending her money for seven years

She was…whatever.

Girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe.

But ***, I tried like two times,

and I'm just not gay.

She gets out in about eight or nine months

and I told her I would get her a house.

But nowhere near me.

I didn't touch her,

but I'd be, like...

a funny story:

I told her,

Don't you ever ******* think

about contacting me in the real world.

I'm not a lesbian.

Then about two years ago, I got an e-mail from her,

or she called me and said, 'Google my name.'

So I Googled her name,

and she has this huge company.

Huge!

She won, like, Woman of the Year awards.

So I called her and I go,

Not bad.

She goes, 'Well, I did all that because you called me a loser.'

I go, '****, I should've called you more names

you probably would've found the cure for cancer by now.



XLI.

No person shall be employed by the licensee

who has ever been convicted of

a felony involving moral turpitude

But I qualify,

I mean, big deal, so I'm a convicted felon.

Being in the *** industry, you can't be so squeaky-clean.

You've got to be hustling.

Nighttime is really enchanting here

It's like a whole 'nother world out here, it really is

I’m so far removed from my social life and old surroundings.

Who was it, Oscar Wilde, I think, who said

people can adjust to anything.

I was perfectly adjusted in the penitentiary,

and I was perfectly adjusted to living in a château in France.



We had done those drug addiction shows together

Dr. Drew.

Afterward we were friendly

and he'd call me every now and then.

He'd act like he had his stuff together.

But it was all a lie.

Everything is a lie.

I brought him to a Humane Society event at Paramount Studios last year.

He was just such a mess.

So out of it.

He stole money from my purse.

He's such a drug addict because he's so afraid of being fat.

He liked horse ****, though. He did like horse ****.

This one woman that would have *** with a horse on the internet,

He told me that’s his favorite actress.

Better than Meryl Streep.



XLII.

The cops could see

why these women were taking over trade.

Girls with these looks charged upwards of $500 an hour.

The Russians had undercut them with a bargain rate of $150 an hour.

One thing they are not is lazy.

In the USSR

they grew up with no religion, no morality.

Prostitution is not considered a bad thing.

In fact, it’s considered a great way to make money.

That’s why it’s exploding here.

What we saw was just a tip of the iceberg.

These girls didn’t come over here expecting to be nannies.

They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting into.

The madam who organized this raid

was making $4 million a year,

laundered through Russian-owned banks in New York City

These are brutal people.

They are all backstabbers.

They’re entrepreneurs.

They’re looking at $10,000 a month for turning tricks.

For them, that’s the American dream.



XLIII.

If you’re not into something,

don’t be into it

But,

if you want to take some whipped cream,

put it between your toes,

have your dog licking it up and,

at the same time,

have your girlfriend poke you in the eye,

then that’s fine.

That’s a little weird but we shouldn’t judge.



She was my best friend then

and I consider her one of my best friends now,

because when I was going through Riker’s

and everyone abandoned me,

including my boyfriend,

I was hysterical,

crying,

and she was the one that was there.

And, when somebody needed to step up to the plate,

that’s who did, and I have an immense amount of

loyalty, respect, and love for her.

And if she’s going to prison for eight years

—that’s what she’s sentenced for

—I’ll go there,

and I’ll go there every week,

for eight years.

That’s the type of person I am.

First Minutes
The discovery sinks in as we spring into action
Adrenaline kicks in, heart pounding, blood rushing.
My mind confusedly putting pieces together.
First Few Hours
Calls are made to paramedics and cops and investigators swarm our house.
Our car goes faster than what is safe as we follow the ambulance as it carried what we would later learn was only her body and a few dedicated paramedics.
A time of death is announced and more tearful calls are made, this time to family and later to friends.
We leave hours later surrounded by a mournful silence.
First Day
We sat on the on the couch in a shocked silence, which was only broken by my calls to her friends, the ringing of the house phone and doorbell.
First Week
The silence was deafening and I had to escape.
So I returned to school after making arrangements with my family for the cremation and shedding my own tears for the first time. I caught the last two classes of the day and began burying myself in my classwork after telling those who needed to know.
First Month
Our own questions were behind every turn as we handled finances, possessions, settling things and celebrating her short life.  
I began to tell more and more of my friends.
Second Month
The pain was still fresh and stinging,
My mother returned to work for the first time.
Third Month
I held back my tears in English.
The play we read reminding me of her and running lines with her the previous year.
Fourth Month
I let it get to me while locked in my room, wishing it was my boyfriend's arms around me instead of my paint-stained jacket as I painted the canvas as black as I was feeling.
Recording my tears for him and watching how he hid his own watery eyes the next day in class as I honored our promise.
Her birthday passed and my mother planted flowers.
Fifth Month
After an uneventful spring break, my dad began staying home from work, unable to handle the weight of his thoughts.
Sixth Month
School ended and summer began and for the first time in what was now fourteen years, I didn't have a sister. I was alone.
Seventh Month
Slowly but surely the pain faded, with the help of scattered therapists, counselors, and mountains of support from family and friends. Summer traditions continued but were never the same.
Eighth Month
The weight of her absence doesn’t rest on my shoulders as heavy anymore.
Ink stains me with her memory. The pain I felt, saw and personified over many pages as we still face it.
My father has returned to work as we each learn to deal with the missing piece of our family in our own ways.
Ninth Month
School begins.
It's my junior year and school is starting for the first time since 3rd grade without my sister. My mother would always take a "first-day" picture, the tradition faded when we attended different schools. Maybe it wasn't so annoying after all.
Tenth Month
It's October, my, our, favorite month. Lost memories run through my head along with missed opportunities. Did we even carve pumpkins last year? Last year we argued about passing out candy but both ended up falling asleep. When was the last time we went to the County Fair? The Mullet Festival? Missed opportunities for silly reasons.
Eleventh Month
The Holiday season is kicking off. Soon it will be Thanksgiving. Her absence is noticeable as I stand amongst my family and celebrate. The only ones who don't ignore it are the little ones, repeatedly asking where she is as the grownups look uncomfortable. I don't know what to tell them.
Twelveth Month
The Holidays are in full swing and I can't help but think of the last one we all spent together. She passed before Christmas. They aren't the same anymore.

One Year
Its hard to believe that a year has passed without her. Her room is the same as if shes just at school. We spent the anniversary doing things she enjoyed, like taking the family dog to the beach and sharing cotton candy.
We haven't moved on, not in the slightest. My mother still cries, I don't think she'll ever stop. But as the days pass I can see how it gets easier and easier for my family to be happy again.

ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1 you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends

Mr. Poet Guy

There was a time, not so long ago,
lived a man you all very well know.
Walking down the street one afternoon,
it was a bright sunny day in June.
Came across a man so mean,
what happened next was quite the scene.
Pulled out a gun and shot me dead,
one single bullet into my very head.
That's the day the poet died,
all over the world people cried.
Singing bye-bye Mr. Poet Guy,
paramedics tried, but with tears in eye.
As the police drew their white chalk line,
my soul escaped, you can see the incline.
The paramedics tried with all their might,
I was so dead, couldn't put up a fight.
Singing bye-bye Mr. Poet Guy,
paramedics tried, but with tears in eye.
They drove me hearse to the levy,
blood drained out and body was dry,
singing this will be the day that he die.
Thousands of people came from every state,
please don't mourn, just celebrate.
They never did find the man in question,
millions of people, now in depression.
Maybe he works for the C.I.A,
if he's caught, what would he say.
Listen Judge, does it really matter,
he deserved that brain splatter.
Singing bye-bye Mr. Poet Guy,
paramedics tried, but with tears in eye,
singing this will be the day that he die.

PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi

do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me

A sound better and livelier as ever startled me. Baffled and unaware of my surroundings, my eyes slowly opened, viewing my irresistible grandmother’s hand gently touching my cheek. Listening carefully, I noticed a beautiful sound coming from her voice. The warm-hearted, lovable lady warmly smiled down at me as my smile formed into the shape of a crescendo, getting larger and wider, finally to a laugh of pure joy. I knew one thing was certain to be true; I fell in love with the intriguing sounds bit by bit.
I awoke to the sight of my father playing his guitar at a medium volume. The sound of the instrument inspired me and motivated me to follow him. I lie in my crib listening intently to the various sounds coming from the guitar. It was almost morning, yet I thought it was later in the morning because my light was on its maximum strength. I watched his fingers move very quickly on the guitar, yet the sounds were beautiful.
“Good morning my love,” said my father smiling at me. “Did you have a good sleep, my love?” he said.
“Pno,” I said on my very own.
“What did you say my love?” said my father startled and impressed that I had just muttered my first word at age one. His smile was soothing in my opinion. His eyes became lively and big with complete shock and joy.
“Po neo.”
“Piano!” said my father ecstatic at the moment.
Considering music was his dream, he wanted me to take part in the wonderful career as well. He set his guitar down against my light blue-colored wall. Then my father went to my small rocking chair and sat down. He put his face in the palm of his hands. I thought he was crying and intimidated by me, but then I realized he was very proud of me and believed I would go far in life. He stood up and picked me up gently and set me down on a chair next to my piano. He smiled and embraced me with affection. I knew my father’s name by heart but I couldn’t manage to say it. It was William. He started playing simple notes on the keys with his thick, masculine hands. He played six notes, all with important meaning and full-care. He motioned for me to take part playing as well.
“No, no. You’ve done it all wrong my love. You must listen with ease and act how you feel,” said my father with concern.
I started weeping large sobs as my father talks in a loud tone with disapproval.
“What, my dear?” says William concerned.
I pressed a key on the piano and roar with laughter.
“You’ve got it my love,” said my father in a soft, mellow tone.
I then take again to the keyboard, this time with full confidence playing again. My father then sang a song while playing the piano. I didn’t know the name of the song, but he told me it was a song he had written after. That inspired me to write my own songs and play the piano and possibly the guitar.
“This is the world, I hail from.  The sorrows and pity we might feel for each other. But arised a God who’s mighty strong. Who turns our sorrows into pride and joy, and this is where I am hail from,” sang my father very emotional.
“You’ll go far my love, I promise you. One day music will save you...” said my father.
…28 years later those words stuck with me…
I was off to work going about my usual day. I was thirty one now and living with my girlfriend in our apartment. I still lived in my hometown, California. Whenever I thought of my hometown, the song “Hometown California,” came to me automatically. I’d just start singing. I wouldn’t consider myself an excellent singer, but that was just a hobby of mine. I was phenomenal at playing the piano and very good at playing the guitar in the eyes of many people.
…When the weekend finally came, I found the time on Saturday morning to fit a tennis match in with one of my good friends, Troy.  As we rally back and forth, something caught me by surprise. A grey-haired man about twice my age had an awkward looking smile that lit up his whole face. I was baffled at the bizarre stranger. He came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.  I looked at him.
“Hello young fellow. My name is Harry Hayfold and I was wondering if you would like to train with me to become a professional tennis player.” said the man.
‘No thanks man, I’m just playing a match with my friend. Thanks anyways.” I said and I went back to rallying.
“Young fellow, please. You’ve great skill as I see,” said the older guy eager to say something more.
“I don’t think I want to train for hours for a chance at becoming a pro- tennis player. Thanks for the compliment though,” I said a little annoyed.
“It would be your loss sir.” said the man.
I just continued rallying with my friend. My friend looked baffled as well and felt bad for the guy. I didn’t care if he was still standing there; I just wanted to play. When we were finished rallying, we started a match. As I throw the ball up to serve, he shouts something right next to me.
“Would you please just listen to what I have to say?!” said the man angry.
“Oh, my god; could you leave us alone now?  I’m not doing the training classes; I have a job. I work in a music store, okay!” I said very annoyed.
My friend came over to my side of the tennis court and asked what the problem was to the man.
“I can’t stand people like you. You’re a liar and a creep.” said John.
“Which music store do you work at?” asked the man.
“It’s called Music Academy. Can you leave us alone now?” I said perturbed.
“I’m very sorry to have bothered you.” said the man.
“Yeah,” I said without any enthusiasm.
“No wait, he’ll be honored to do the classes with you sir. He needs money anyway,” said John’s friend Troy.
“What are you doing?!” I said to my friend with fury. “I will be fine financially once I get signed professionally which will happen troy. It will definitely happen. This guy… He’s out of his mind,” I said confident.
“What did you say your name was?” said the man.
“John.” I said.
“Excellent Johnathon.”“Meet me here on these same tennis courts tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Don’t be late.” said Harry.
I smashed my racket as hard as I could on the ground with full force, releasing all of my stress and anger out on the court.
“Alright John,” said Troy with pity on him. We’ll hang out again soon.” He said and left.
“Crapola!”  I yelled in mid-air after everyone left.
The next day I don’t even consider going to the psychotic man’s tennis class. Instead, I make my way to work early.
As I’m exiting my shift at night, I noticed someone standing behind a wall. And there it was… I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Oh, no,” I whispered to myself.
“Hello Jonathon. You’re session was at eight am this morning. Have you forgotten?” he said concerned.
“Listen, I don’t think this whole business with the excessive training classes to make me into what I will never become and putting my job in jeopardy of getting fired, is going to work out,” I said with a smile.
“I’ve watched you work in the store John,” said the man concerned.
“Oh jeez, now I’ve got a personal stalker. This is gonna be interesting.” I whispered.
“How much do you make a week? I’ve come to sought you don’t look happy working there and want to become into a real musician.” said Harry.
I was just about to completely lose my mind when I took a deep breath and bit my tongue to avoid making a scene. My face turned so red.
“Once I get a record deal with the piano, then things will be even better for me. But as of now, I’m very happy, just not super happy. And you know what else, I’m so happy I began music because I couldn’t get much happier. Oh, the glory of being a musician would make me so happy. And you barging randomly into my life and ******* up everything… well I couldn’t get much happier!” I managed to scream at the end of my statement.
“Come with me John. Please let me help you find a way to forget that you’re not a musician.” said the man.
“My father was my inspiration. He’s dead now, yet I’m following in his footsteps because I want to.” I said.
“I see… I’m very sorry for your loss John,” said Harry with a fake sad expression on his face.
This man was driving me up the wall by now. I had had it with his monkey business.
There was a long pause…
“So tomorrow at eight?” I said completely unsatisfied, yet willing to experiment with what he had in mind to teach me.
“Yes, oh yes that would be just perfect John,” said Harry ecstatic.
We both started walking to our homes. He had walked rather quickly for an older guy, and me, slowly like I’d just had a pancreas failure.
When I arrived at my apartment, my girlfriend wasn’t there.
“Jenny, I’m home”… “Jenny, you there?” I said baffled at the silence. “Jennyyyyy”, I said playfully. Jennifer… Is dinner set toniiiight?” I said as I smiled at my own humor.
All of a sudden, the phone rang, which startled me and made me uninterested at this point to answer. I answered the phone anyway.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, this is a patient of Jennifer; is Jenny there?”
“No she isn’t at the moment,” I said unsure of my answer.
“Ok, thank you,” she said and hung up.
“You’re welcome,” I said sarcastically after she already hung up.
I walked into our bedroom to take my work clothes off and put pajamas on. The door was closed which got me a little concerned and angry. I walked in the bedroom and turned on the light.
“What the hell is going on here?! Get off my girlfriend you crazy *******!” I yelled.
“No John, please stop. He’s my fiancé John,” said Jenny annoyed with me.
“What are you talking about Jennifer?” I said raging with anger.
“Listen john, I’m sorry. Things weren’t working out between us recently and things just clicked between… well Steve and I.” she said.
“ I can’t believe what I am seeing right now,” said john through tears of disappointment and anger.
“Things weren’t working out between us John_”
“Yeah, I think you mentioned that already.” said John crying hysterically.
“Well don’t be sorry. Be sorry at yourself because I did nothing but treat you nicely. What happened to us Jenny? We were so in love with each other. I can’t believe what I am seeing.” I said.
My girlfriend my starting to cry now and as she began to speak I walked out stomping on the floor and slammed the front door as I exited my apartment.
“The next morning John arrived at the tennis courts that he visited two days ago with his friend.
“I’m here; let’s start playing tennis,” I said calmly.
“Wait, wait. I have not yet explained the concepts.” said Harry.
“Yeah, yeah, concepts. I know,” I said annoyed.
I picked up a tennis ball and hit it over the fence as hard as I could.
“Excellent work there John,” said Harry sarcastically.
“That was just a warm up professor. Now here comes glory,” I said about to ****** someone.
I slam my pre-broken racket on the floor so hard that it cracked in half. The man was outraged at the horrifying scene.
“I missed work this morning for this crapola?!” I yelled.
John, you’re crazy right now. Sit down and relax!” said Harry firmly.
“Music is all I want and you’re taking that away from me.” I said
“I apologize sir; I don’t think I want to do this anymore.” I said.
“Anymore? You haven’t even started playing yet,” said Harry with a little chuckle.
“Ok, fine; I’ll play.” I said. “I don’t have a racket now.” I said ashamed and guilty.
“That’s not my problem.” said Harry. “If you no longer have a racket, I will let you have my spare racket if you practice drills catching the ball precisely with only your hands.”
“Ha, you’re kidding right? That was a good one Harry; very good.” I said.
I tap him on the shoulder.
“See you tomorrow.” I said.
“Will you stop acting arrogant and negative for once John! I was serious about the hand drill.” said Harry.
“Ok then.” I said.
Harry got on the side opposite from my side. He took a bunch of ***** and out them in his pockets.
“Now John…I want you to catch the ball wherever I throw it okay?” said Harry.
“Yeah, I’m ready.” I said.
He fed the ball over the net and John caught the ball wherever he threw it. When he was getting exhausted from the number of ***** being fed to him, he took the ball and smashed it on the ground.
“What in heaven’s name has come over you?” asked the man terrified.
“Nothing, except the fact that my girlfriend is now getting married with her new fiancé and was having an affair in my bedroom. That is it ladies and gentleman, the show is now over,” I said sarcastically.
“Oh, haha…hahahahahahaahahaa.” Harry chuckled.
Harry burst out laughing.
“John, John, I’m sorry. The way you said it made me laugh, that’s all.” said Harry.
I run up to the old man about ready to **** him (not literally) when he started coughing. He fell down to his knees holding his chest.
“John,” he whispered trying to grasp more oxygen.
“What happened Harry? Are you alright?” I asked nervously panicking.
I ran off the court to get my cell phone in my tennis bag on one of the park benches and called an ambulance. I then run back to Harry.
“I’m calling an ambulance for you Harry. It’ll be okay,” I said about to cry from the sight of what just happened.
When the ambulance came, he was put on a stretcher by several paramedics and taken to the nearest hospital. I don’t bother calling my ex-girlfriend, knowing I was through with her insecure ways and immaturity level. I drove to the hospital following the ambulance as I drove. I arrived at the hospital minutes after him and sat in the waiting room for over two hours with his son who was about my age, if not older. The doctor came out looking down with tears in his eyes. He ripped off his glasses and fell to his knees. He stood up…
“I’m very sorry. There was nothing more I could precede on doing,” said the doctor.
The doctor walked away looking very upset and disappointed in himself and what happened. I turned to his son and saw such shock and disappointment in him.
“He was a very mysterious, outgoing person and a great father,” said his son through tears.
I nodded my head and smiled.
“My father tried to teach you basic steps of becoming a tennis player, but it wasn’t for a career. Trust me. He wanted you to learn something new. That’s all. He can be difficult at times, I know, but he is a very courageous man and loves helping others,” said his son smiling at me.
I was shocked. I was living an okay life with music. But now I realized that this man inspired me to follow chase after what you want. He taught me that things may be challenging in life, but you can overcome them if you work hard and love what you do in life. Even through financial problems, I realized that you can still achieve your dreams and it is never too late to start a record deal. His son left the hospital before me without mentioning what his name was. I believed the Harry and his family were a mystery, but a good mystery. I showed up to the music store the next morning and the manager of the store had exhilarating news for me. I had gotten signed by a famous musician! This was the best day of my whole entire life and I could not have asked for anything more in life.
“Signed by Buddy Clark, I present to you your record deal. Sign this and you have a chance to work with this talented man for a chance at achieving your dream John. Well done, we’re all very proud of you,” said the manager of the store.
All of the workers in the store started cheering me on and applauding my superb work and efforts. I was now in tears of pure joy and I felt worth something major for the first time.
“Thanks a lot Jason,” I said to the manager of the store. “This is a gift; it means the world to me,” I said as I gave him a hug.
I realized life is not all about tennis or music. It’s the important things in music that make you feel out of this world amazed. People may have a strong opinion about something they love, but never take a person for granitite.

when I am writing I want to tell a story. sometimes thoses stories are not what the mind wants to read. but I want the heart to be forced to feel.
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paramed­ic 1: "young girl age 17, fought out to be, way more then she was meant to be"
  silence fills the ambulance
paramedic 2: "has a few open wounds around the eyes, mouth and even missing a tooth"
  the girl moves her finger
paramedic 1: "it's a sign"
paramedic 2: "yeah she's breathing but that doesn't mean she's alive, you can tell by her eyes. she has lost her sparkel".
paramedic 1: "she must have been here before cause she's fighting, even when she's already gone....she's still trying".
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On those drawn out summer evenings, all manner of characters would fill the coffee shops and spill outside. An interesting cross section of society would be provided for anyone willing to sit and watch, for an hour or two atleast. This particular evening will always stand out for me as representative of those carefree folly filled evenings. I was sat alone, with a copy of the evening news and an espresso across the street from a boisterous coffee shop which remained opened deep into the evening, long after others were closed. I often sat and watched people in those early few months, Id decided against socialising with colleagues. I would go to great lengths to prearranged fictitious plans and engagements in order so that I could sit alone each evening, pleasing myself. It's always far easier to enjoy food alone, without any distractions. After considering my options I settled for a steak, and a glass of wine. The waiter seemingly unconcerned failed to take note as I gave my order, with a shrug of his head he returned to the kitchen inside to place the order. The cafe I watched was perched almost perfectly across the street from the train station. As commuters and young couples in love poured out of the station, and onto the bright expanse which was the street before them. The popularity of this particular cafe is hard to convey correctly, it's frantic nature remained even on the bleakest of midwinter evenings. Now though months of bread and water were long gone, as seasonal waiters hurried arms filled will all manner of snacks and drinks.  All manner of agricultural workers would congregate in early march, eager to snap up work in the best hotels and cafes thus ensuring a healthy wage and generous tips. The waiters from the mountains always stood out. It was as if they retained the innocence of there previous surroundings, smiling all coy when taking orders from female customers. They retained the physical attributes of the mountains which they had left, towering above others and maintaining a mystique which often meant they would return in November with wives and child aswell.




By now it was half past eight atleast, and I had finished my steak and wine. The traffic was in the process of slowing down, although it was not uncommon here for traffic jams to form at any hour of the evening. Car horns echoed and ricocheted off old architecture which gave an impression of immense movement all around.  The owner was a beast of a man standing six foot high atleast, with a beard which gave away his rugged beginnings. It was impossible to estimate his origin correctly, Id always imagined he was from somewhere in Northern Europe although by now I had learnt that assumptions were the preserve of fools. He could most often be found pacing up and down the pavement adjacent to his cafe, smoking his camel blue cigarettes and staring deep into the night sky. As if preoccupied with some great moral dilemma this could go on for hours of end, without him breathing a word to anyone.  Under a great mane of curly brown hair, lay the most enthralling blue eyes imaginable. They had a softness which would not seem out of place upon the face of some Parisian muse. Although I must confess when first confronted with this gentleman an his almost childlike appearance, I was adamant I had him figured. He seemed the kind of man who blundered through life, although successful still seemed to be scraping an unenviable existence for himself.

By now I had stuck around long enough to get some feel for the pitter patter of life in just such a place. The transient nature of the customers ensured a bravado unseen in any old small town watering hole, women driven wild by spontaneous desire stared sultry at the mysterious visitors.
A crew of sailors who had no doubt been granted shore leave, and were soaking up the atmosphere just across the road from me. They could have been from any South American nation, or Spain. It really was impossible to tell from my distance, a few had clearly cultivated moustaches whilst at sea. It was common for sea faring people's to grow ****** hair in such a manner. Almost as if by magic, a story told by someone without a beard holds subtle undertones of irrelevance. I had learned this over the many months I had spent smoking and talking to locals, and travellers alike. I must confess I had fallen hook line and sinker, I was currently locked in the process of cursing my genetics and dreaming of a more rugged appeal.

By now the black coffees had petered out, and had been replaced by glasses and in some cases bottles of what I can only assume was Spanish red wine. The noise had steadily increased as the drinks flowed, and the crowd of sailors had gradually grown more and more boisterous in there escapades . A few feet away the manager stared intently at the revellers, as if the warn them without words of being too careless in a foreign city. The ever present owner done very little to deter the actions of the pack, who's numbers by now had been swelled from another dozen or so sailors who happened to be walking in the right direction.  The sailors leered shamelessly at the local women, whilst the more forward of them made there own advances. Still the manager stood smoking and staring as if to catch the sight of one of them. Now to the wary eyes of a man returned from a long voyage this would seem like a place, where desire became a priority above all else. This would be an entirely accurate assumption although, if the surface was scratched significantly an underbelly of immorality could be found. For the sailors though, whom were just passing through unlikely to ever return this mattered very little. There only concern was draining themselves on some unsuspecting women, or if so required a *******.

It's hard to say exactly how the altercation was initiated, although I suspect the cat calls of a few sailors had pushed one local over the edge. Whilst the promise of conflict ensured a crowd would gather the bar owner remained just away from the ruckus as if picking his moment. The sailors numbered in 20 or so, and fuelled by red wine and continental beer seemed more than willing to put up a fight. A waiter who had tried to act as mediator between the parties had given up, and left for the roadside and had lit up a cigarette. For a few minutes atleast it looked as though the scuffle would be forgotten and laughed about over eggs at breakfast. There was a barrage of shouting and pulling as the locals slowly lost their temper. By now many people had stopped to stare at the spectacle, this is where I must confess things got really strange. As I have previously stated I have no real idea what brought all of this on, that is to say I have no idea what set the process in motion. It was a well known fact that in times of violence the locals would protect each other with a ferocity and loyalty which could see the most able bodied men come unstuck. I had ordered myself a cream cake, and was skimming through the news from London when I heard a blood chilling yell. I spied the previously placid manager leaving the door which lead to his apartment above the cafe. With the confidence of a man without obligation he sauntered toward the group of sailors. I did not see the knife, I must confess I assumed this old man would take quite a beating at the hands of these sailors. Oh I was wrong, a young sailor fell to the ground silent, as his green shirt went claret with blood. In disbelief his comrades stood around, unsure exactly what to do. The crowd assembled gasped as if to share collective disbelief, the manager had managed to slip off somewhere without provoking any attention. Over the next twenty five minutes an ambulance arrived although I feel even the paramedics knew that this was more an exercise in keeping up appearances than saving any lives. They surely knew that there was very little they could do for this poor boy away from home. Police officers milled around, It was safe to say the bar owner would never be brought to anything like justice for this although, the general consensus was that anyone who got stabbed more than likely deserved it in someway or another. As for the manager  he had long been bundled into the back of some old pre war car and taken far beyond the cries and disdain of world weary sailors. No doubt to reappear a week or so later.

Screeching tires, blinding lights, smashing glass.
The whole ordeal took maybe 5 minutes.
Drivers slow down to peek and observe
Then speed down the road.
But, when you’re laying there in the glass and noise.
It’s not the same.
The paramedics came.
Remain calm.
Breathe.
Don’t close your eyes.
Stay with us.8
Breathe.
The only thing I can think about is my license.
Two Words

***** Donor.

They’re missing from my ID.
I didn’t check the box.

***** Donor.

The paramedics are talking.
Mumbling.
They’re underwater.
That’s not good.

I want to be an ***** donor* I say.
They pause.
One moment.
Dave looks at me.
His name is embroidered on his uniform.
Is uniform the right word?

I want to be an ***** donor.
I say again.

It won’t come to that
Dave assures me.
His smile is weak.

***** Donor.

Write it down I say
Firm.
Dave shrugs and takes out his clipboard.
I watch him write
***** Donor.

I sigh, relieved.
Anything else?
Dave asks.
He looks at his partner
He’s covered in blood.
My blood.
That’s not good.

***** Donor.

Yes. I tell Dave.
He gets his pencil ready.
He smiles.
It’s half sincere.
He’s worried.
Last will and testament smile.
I want to be an
***** Donor.
Got that.
Dave says.
The lights are blinding.
I smell and taste metal.
That’s not good.
What to say?
Everything. I want to say everything.
I think of my mom
Clutched hands
White knuckles
Sitting, pacing, crying
The waiting room
Green and white, calming colors
She is red
Her face from lack of sleep
From crying
Stark against the calm walls.
I think of my mother and breathe.

Take everything you can.
Take my body
I don’t need it anymore.
Take it and tell my mother the
Good
It will do.
Take my feet
And tell my mother
About every mile they will walk.
Tell her they will dance in homes
To silly music
and skip through fields
And trudge through mud.
They will scale mountains
And swim through oceans.
They will burn on hot asphalt
And curl up in Satin sheets.
Take my feet.

Take my hands
And tell my mother
About every handshake
Every high five
Every hand they hold.
Tell her they will be covered in paint
And chocolate and dirt and clay.
My fingers will run through hair
And sand and silk.
They will give hugs and caresses
And love to show they understand.
Take my hands.

Take my eyes
And tell my mother
About everything they will see.
Tell her they will see
Sunrises and sunsets
Mountains, oceans, and airports.
They will sparkle with laughter
And shine with tears.
Tell her that someone will
Fall in love with them
And they will grow
Old and wise.
Take my eyes.

Take my ears
And tell my mother
About all what they will hear.
Tell her they will rock out at concerts
And hear lullabies sung for children.
They will find magic in the spoken word and will hear love and hate.
Tell her about every heart beat,
Sigh of content, and bolt of laughter
They will hear.
Take my ears.

Take my nose
And tell my mother
About everything it will smell.
Tell her it will catch wisps of
Perfume and Cologne
Mingling with coffee and bread
From a Paris café.
It will crinkle at the smell of skunks
But open wide at the smell of rose.
Take my nose.

Take my lips
And tell my mother
About every sweet kiss.
Tell her they will whisper
I love you
And really mean it.
They will stretch with laughter
purse with disdain
and never make a duck face.
They will speak slowly savoring
Every syllable of sound
And tumble fast over flirty quips
Take my lips.

Take my lungs
And tell my mother
About every breath of air they get.
Tell her they will feel crisp autumn winds
And heavy humid summer breezes.
They will heave and pant in laughter
And in despair.
They will catch and gasp and get the hiccups.
They will bellow leaving
No song unsung.
Take my lungs.

Take my heart.
Please take my heart
And tell my mother
About every single beat.
Tell her when it moves fast
Or slow.
Tell her it will be consumed
With passion
And blaze with ecstasy.
Tell her it will grow
And grow
And grow
And grow
Tell her it will never forget her.
Tell her it will give someone
A new start.
Please, take my heart.
Please take my heart.
Take my kidneys, liver, spleen, stomach, and appendix.
Whatever you need take it from me.

***** Donor.

I want to be an ***** donor
Because I want to live.

How horrible it was
to wake up to your cries for help.
I came to find you had fallen,
your oxygen disconnected,
the clear tubes lying in a tangle
on your bedroom floor.

At first, you had been conscious,
your beautiful brown eyes looked up at me pleadingly,
and then you were gone.

I was alone and terrified,
having dealt with this before
I couldn’t say it was anything new,
but this time was different than the script of
past events.

Wishing I could escape like a bird in flight,
I knew I had no power to save you,
The harsh truth of my reality
suffocated me. My walls closing in
as I realized what was happening
in this moment.

Prior to this,
you had always made it to the hospital alright,
arguing with paramedics,
but this time,
you were motionless and cold.

I’ll never forget the blue stillness of your lips,
or the way the light left your eyes
as you departed the material world
and finally found peace in eternal rest.

Colorful, tasty
Sticky swirls, canes, and powders
Make the tongue delight.

Ambulance, paramedics
Diabetic coma; sigh

I could inject a gram of you
straight into my veins.
And when the paramedics arrive,
to find me incoherent,
half dead in a pool of my own waste,
your name will still be on
the tip of my tongue.

When I was a little lassie my Grandad and I
were very fond of each other indeed
(although not sexually I must add
before you suspicious buggers start complaining).

Over the hills and fields we used to wander just like, er,
...let me think of a nice metaphor here...
er, like a man and his granddaughter or
like a couple of not so lonely clouds.

Oh how joyfully we would seek out rare birds’ nests
so as to smash the eggs to bits in a frenzy of joy,
which we both enjoyed a lot as it was, er, reet good fun
and a statement of individual choice we both appreciated.

Sometimes we would noisily take a steaming **** together
(although ABSOLUTELY NO ****** contact ever took place
I really must reiterate that for all you ***-abuse-obsessives,
but he had a stupendously big ***** for an old codger).

When we got home in the evening dear old Grandad
would usually make us a nice *** of builders' tea
and some ****** great doorstop sandwiches, but
even at that tender age I would have opted for a good stiff whisky.

Or, come to think of it, a large glass of chilled Chardonnay,
and a plateful of smoked salmon or some oysters,
but the old ******* was teetotal (at least in public) -
either that or just plain ******* mean as Hell.

Darling wizened Granny would make us some toast
out of leftover stale Mother’s Pride white bread,
but, being half blind, the silly fat old cow usually managed
to burn it to a sodding inedible cinder.

On Sundays they would get the gramophone out
and put on some tango 78 records
as they loved Latin American dancing and a good old *****
of each other's flaccid, age-withered buttocks.

How happily I remember the old couple tangoing away
just like a couple of wrinkled whirling ****** dervishes
to 'La Cumparsita' recorded by Mantovani & His Tipica Orchestra
on 20th June 1940 and issued on the Decca label.

They also taught me how to do the rumba
(oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumpah)
and I became quite an expert at the Cuban samba
(which my beloved Grandad wittily called the *****).

How joy-filled were those faraway times of my golden childhood.
but one day I went round only to find an ambulance outside
and the paramedics told me the old pair had been found dead in bed,
their boudoir resembling an abattoir at closing time.

Grandad had bashed the old *****’s brains out
with a red-hot poker during some depraved *** session
and then shoved it eighteen inches up his own *******
which must surely have stung his piles quite a bit.

But what a creative way to go - I bet he danced a bit
as the steaming poker seared his poor back passage.
And thus my grandparents ascended up into the sky -
may they stay forever young in the company of the angels.

Let me again emphasis our friendship was purely platonic
because this was in the rare old times of yesteryear
when widespread paedophilia was not yet a gleam in the eye
of some trash newspaper editor eager to engage with the plebs.

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to confine
his usage of the opioid to a social occasion.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use; indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system,
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has advanced to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the cost of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Instead of a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency
to view anything in bad light. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever
he plunges from troubled life to no life,
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst. Besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing
to feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around their home.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem to conceal the frequent
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little, or no influence, over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain, whose structure and functions are

badly impacted by years-long use of the drug.
The healing process is a labour of discipline
and commitment, coupled with patience
in order to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task he's
expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the murky shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', were
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world.
He's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it many times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option available

is to indulge on the drug, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it hurts
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control.

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer,
to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

Looking back, I think I knew she wasn’t going to wake up that night. Maybe I thought she wouldn’t wake up ever.
CHAPTER 1: ENDLESS SLEEP
It seemed to me that the fact that movies and stories make it appear as if sad things can only and will only occur during rain and thunder was just stupid. The weather has no affect on the events, right? But I was wrong. On Tuesday, April 18th, I began to realize this apparently idiotic movie ploy might have an inkling of truth buried in it.
That day, the kids had teased me again, but to be totally honest, I didn’t mind it then and I don’t mind it now. It had begun to rain when I was halfway down 17th street. I had immediately removed my shoes and socks, and stuffed them into my bag, which was already overflowing with scraps of paper and books. Most of the books had been for free time reading, and are currently lying in a heap in my room at Dad's, where they will remain unread until I decide to forget that awful, horrible, tragic day.
I ran all the way to our apartment, but went the long way and danced and twirled as my un-zippered jacked flapped uselessly behind me. My lungs burned white-hot, but my body was freezing, a feeling I still to this day enjoy. By the time I had reached the alleyway behind the crumbling yet comforting building, I was soaked through, and I loved it. I decided to go around back so Martin would have no excuse to yell at me in that foul, ill-tempered way that made the skin underneath his chin jiggle. I had started towards the rusted door when I saw her. Of course, it hadn't been her. She had been inside, where she alway waited for me to get home. But I had felt on that day as protective of her as she always insisted upon being with me.
I grasped the icy handle and slipped inside, the warmth of the building suffocating rather than comforting me. To this day, I prefer being cold, because it clears the mind, and warmth clouds it, like the foul demon that lures you into the endless sleep that tried to take my mother that day. I climbed the steps; the sudden noise of my feet on the stairs was like a rock sliding under the water, breaking the calm.
I remember how the climb up the stairs that day had seemed especially long. But mostly, I remember how the apartment smelled when I finally reached the top and slid the key into the lock, turning it noisily. I remember the smell, and how the instant it hit my nose I knew that I wasn’t to expect the warm, gentle mother I came to expect most days, but that I was going to get the harsh, drunken version, when she had been smoking and on drugs.
Resignedly, I called, “MOM! I'm home from school!” only then I hadn't known that I would never get an answer. I dumped my soaking bag unceremoniously in the hall, and it hit the floor with a wet thump, splattering mud on the tiles. When she didn't respond, I had frowned; a face Andrew tells me makes me look somehow more mysterious.
The trip I had then taken to her room revealed only that she had passed out on the bed, and that she smelt of sadness. But at that time, sadness wasn't uncommon. I don't remember how long I stood there, but I know that when I finally awoke from my thoughts, I showered and got into my softest pajamas. I settled down to do my homework, but I hadn't been trying hard, so when the time had come to make dinner, I had only made the smallest of dents.
Simply because I had been tired and hadn't been up to making anything more complicated, I made tomato soup. Mom always used to make my soup with milk rather than water, so that was how I made it too. I poured the soup into mugs, because we always liked to drink it rather than eat it. I remember sipping from my mug, and I remember how the warmth burned the roof of my mouth. The heat of it brought tears to my eyes, which were every bit as salty as the soup. I walked to her room, and knocked on the door, the sound echoing through the apartment. She hadn’t answered though, so I entered with the intention of waking her up.
“Mom!” I had said. “Wake up, I made dinner!” and I set the mugs down on her bedside table. With my freed hands, I had shaken her shoulder softly. She didn't wake though, which had surprised me, for she always woke instantly as if her dreams were frail and easy to shatter.
“Mom!” I had raised my voice, and I shook her more vigorously. “MOM!” I think it was on the third time that I finally began to realize, but I still shook her.
On the fifth try I had begun to cry, and on the sixth the calm part of me told the hysterical part: *She is fine. She will wake in the morning, I promise. She will wake. That was the first time I ever lied to myself.
I remember pulling the covers on the bed over her, and then gingerly lying down next to her. Mom. I kept thinking to myself, as if my mere thoughts might wake her. But I had known she wasn't gone, for I felt her breath next to me, soft, shallow, and hardly discernible from my own, yet still breathing. I had drunk the rest of my soup, but left hers, telling myself she would drink it when she woke. Now, looking back, I realize how stupid it was of me to have thought that she would wake up.
I don't even remember falling asleep that night, but I must have, for in the morning when I woke I looked quickly over at her, hoping, wishing that she might have risen. I remember shaking her again, pleading, “Mom, it's the morning, and you missed dinner but it's okay, I will make you more if you please wake up, please momma. Please,” But she didn't heed me. I remember sitting in bed with her all morning, watching the clock. I didn't get ready for school. My mom was more important, I told myself. When the clock had ticked from 8:29 to 8:30, I knew the bell had rung, and I was late. I guess to me that had been a signal: The rest of the world has continued without us. I remember standing up and padding to the kitchen, and grabbing the wireless phone. I remember how icy cold it had felt, as opposed to the warmth and comfort of the bed in Mom's room. For once I simply craved the innocent warmth from my mother's inert body. I walked back in and sat on the edge of the bed. I dialed 9-1-1 and hit the 'call' button.
“This is 9-1-1 what is your emergency?” a rough male voice had said.
“I-” I had to clear my throat from lack of use. “My mom was passed out last night when I got home from school. I thought she would wake up, like she always does, but she hasn't. She is still breathing. Please come,” I had said all that with a flat voice, refusing the awful feeling in my throat that warned of tears.
“What is your location?” he asked, his voice softer now.
“913 Alvarado,” I whisper. “Fourth floor, number 413. My name is Sierra Banks.”
“Paramedics are on their way, ok?”
“Ok,” I recall how loud the click was when he hung up, and I felt the cold, empty silence press down and around me until I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to talk to someone, anyone, except the police officers who sounded way too casual. My mom's life might be on the line, and all they do is talk in monotone. Like they don’t care about all those lives. I knew then that I was being unfair, and that they were simply used to losing lives, but...
I looked up at the soup mugs on the table and next to them...her cell. The last person she talked to. I scooped it up, went to last calls, and hit redial.
Ring...Ring...Ring... “Hello, Clemens residence.”
“Dad.” The pain of hearing his voice then was the same as when I hear it every day now. Regret had instatly clouded my heart with the cold wall I built four years ago. Tears began to pour down my cheeks, but I can't recall now if they were hot and scalding, or cold.
“Sierra?” his voice too had become thick, and I hated him for crying. He left us.
“Yes,” I had been unable to force any other meaningless words at him. I hadn't seen him in four years, when we visited him, his beautiful new wife, and worst of all, his new baby girl. He replaced me! My throat burns to think of it. I hadn't thought of Lila, my step sister, and my replacement since she was born. Fury built up inside me. Why did mom call them last? Why does she still hold his number in her phone even after he left? And most importantly, what did they talk about? I still haven't forgotten these questions, but I most certainly haven't got any answers.
“Dad, mom is in trouble. She hasn't woken up since yesterday. I thought she would wake up but she hasn't. The ambulance is on its way,” Instantaneously, I hated myself for telling him, pouring out how scared I was. He didn't deserve to know, to pretend to feel sorry.
“Oh Sierra. Oh my beautiful daug-” he began, but I had already ended the call. How dare he call me beautiful? He hadn't seen me in so many years. He didn't deserve to pretend he care. Maybe I loved him once, but not anymore. I didn’t, and still don’t, want his sympathy, his false words, dripping in I-told-you-so. But most importantly, I didn’t want him to hear me cry.
Now I find myself having to live with him, and have to be constantly aware of him walking in on me. Like the other day when he walked into my room to see how I was doing with homework and found me rocking and bawling on the bed. Gasps had escaped from me in rapid succession; my sobs had shaken the bed so that it creaked softly. My lips curled apart from my teeth as I convulsed. I sniffed loudly and, gradually, my sobs had died down. Eventually too, my ears had regained their sense, and their voices had drifted to me from outside my bubble of silence.
Most days I had control enough to save my tears for the night or not cry at all. A week ago my English teacher had made us write letters to our parents. I had asked if I could write mine to someone else, because I was still furious at my dad, and mom left me. I know that she was in a coma, and she can't help it now, but I remember all the times that I was strong through her rampages. It didn't matter anyways, because Mr. Steiner blatantly refused. I decided to write it to mom, since I refused those days to even to acknowledge that I had a father.
And to this day I remember every word, for I read that letter a hundred times that day, until I had it committed to memory, so that I could have it with me, where ever I might be.
The ambulance arrived about five minutes after I hung up on Richard. The memory of crying, and rocking endlessly in pitch blackness made me refuse even to call him my father. What I kind of father, I asked myself, leaves his daughter crying, without comforting her, when the only person who ever loved her, is a million miles away? 'Mine,' I had answered myself, bitterly.

Life is like a suicide hike,
Although it's a beautiful trail
It's scary to think one day we'll fall.
We fall because we walk on edges,
Some worth walking on, some not.
Ultimately, we learn from both.


Be careful who you choose to walk with,
Be careful who you choose to sit with.
Because they may just push you off
And way down you'll be falling down.
But sometimes it wasn't them who pushed you off
But it was them you thought would help you up.


And when we've hit our lowest point in life
We start looking for the root of our pain,
But it's dark and empty, it stings we feel lost.
It's no paradise down here, the pain feeds on our strength.
It's a tragic accident that breaks all of our bones.
With no paramedics or anesthesia, we've got to operate ourselves.
We don't know which injury is killing us more,
But we know a slow death is coming for us.
Our blood no more, regret is what the heart pumps now,
We scream and cry away our mistakes
But down here is a curse playing our fall in a loop,


I don't know when it stops
I'm drowning myself in my pain.
I've stained my soul with too much hate
I'm no longer the person who I used to be.
I've been down in the dark for too many days  
But when I start my hike again  
I hope to go further than yesterday.

I’m bleeding tremendously down my face
I almost escaped.

It’s 5am, we walked the streets and had a cigarette
You tell me about yourself, “God”
It seemed so innocent, only walking

We left with no words
Such harmless individuals with no intentions
We were just happy and free

That’s not my name- I lied.
Cause you pigs are just trying to make bank  
at the end of the month.
So close to making it.
I’ve got dirt grinding between my teeth
And my face is
soaked a crimson red
pooling under my eye
dripping into my mouth
“Call paramedics!”
“but I’m fine, I’m fine.”
I’m trying to cooperate now.
You must think I’m ******* insane

There’s no panic in me
only sorrow.
Up against the car
ambulance head lights
******* blinding me.
You’re already in the back of the car
the overhead light casting onto your face
you mouthed the words so calmly
“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay”
I tried to believe, I tried to cry.

Back up arrives
******* ******* are having
a ******* fiesta.
But the paramedics are nice
just stop taking pictures of me, please.

I collapse onto the ground
against the vehicle
with my vision spotted
so close to passing out.

They decide we can ride in the same vehicle.
“You like to swim, God?” you asked.
“When I was a kid.” he’s blunt.
“Why not now? It feels just as good as it did
when you were 10.”
But he didn’t answer.
And the sun is lighting the city that I love

There’s massive sliding doors
they crash so loudly
the sound ricochets off the cement walls.

We’re escorted inside
I still haven’t shed any tears.
We remove all jewelry
un-weave  all that’s tangled in our dreads
“They want everything in this ******* bag.”
the policeman said.
they cut the strings from my ******
christmas tree shorts

I’m given beige sandals
my soiled feet are too small.
I take a seat on the cement bench
filthy old ***** eyeing me up and down
grinning freakishly.
I look ******* haggard.

I see the counselor
then attempt to use the bathroom
to open the door on
some old **** ****
taking a ****.

Infomercials drone
obnoxiously.
I hate television.

You take a seat next to me
wearing the hideous sandals as well.
So cold, the alcohol is wearing off
you hand me your paisley flannel.
I bleed on it.

If only we had stayed behind that building
smoking our cigarettes
sharing our minds.
Only 4 more minutes till
the paper would have burned to the filter
would have made all the difference.

I see the nurse.
I’m re-bandaged trying to hold back
my shutters of pain.
His kind words and soft speak
bring me to my first tears
“I’m not like this, I just want to sleep…
in my bed… with my cat.
And my family… Oh my Godddd!”
I’m bellowing as quietly as I can.
And he tells me stories.

I’m allowed to make my phone call
and it’s your turn with the nurse.
Mother.
I’m wallowing into the phone to her
I’m frantic and self-loathing
And she’s coming to save me.

Escorted to your waiting cell
I’m alone now
I feel completely alone.
I’ve lost myself somewhere
between bottles and spent cigarettes.

Taken to the waiting cell
it smells putrid like a public bathroom
which jolts me.
I take my seat on the repulsive floor.

There’s an older obese woman
curled into a ball in the back corner
sobbing.
And everyone looks ******.

The clock is creeping to 8am
******* let me out.
I watch the lazy pigs
******* cackle and stand so proudly
like they earned another
notch in their belts.

Close to 10am I receive my “blues”
and yet another photograph
You in your cell,
give me comforting smiles.
******* **** hollers,
“Awh **** baby! You tried to run!
I’ll bond you out!
I gotcha baby!”
****. Off.

The blond woman takes us upstairs
through metal detectors, crashing doors,
coded rooms, surveillance cameras.
And I’ll never forget
her spidery eyelashes.

I drag my mesh bag on the floor
it contains my blankets and toothbrush…
#36.

I’m lost, everyone there
has been there before.

I just disappeared
no one knows
what happened to me
when they awake.
I let everyone down,
including myself.

The lunch food is served
I want to *****
I’ve been awake for
23hrs and the alcohol is
wearing off completely
I feel like a walking corpse.

#36…
Through the slit of window
I can see you, mother
oh, mother.
please don’t leave me here

I try not to fall asleep
because I could miss the intercom
announcement to release me.

That steel door clicked
and opened
my mother and father stood up
and I had never been happier to see them
It was silent other than my sobbing
and everyone stared
wild-eyed and confused
as I exited to false freedom
and sunshine

Before our Moon
dips below
the romantic
horizon
I'll swing you
around
with such
affectionate
torque
that
paramedics
will need
the Jaws of Life
to extricate us
one
from
the other.

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.

The  last  time  I  saw  her,  she  laid   motionless,  caressed  in  my  father's  gentle  fingers.  Her  eyes,  staring  blankly  into   oblivion.  The  beautiful  face  that  she  wears  so  perfectly, displays  no  emotion.  Her  chest  is  laying  flat;  Not  rising  and falling  as  one  would  expect  to  see.  No  one  seems  to understand  the  extent  of  the  situation.  Nobody  wanting  to accept  the  inevitable  fate  of  our  beloved  family  member.  
It  all  started  out  relatively  early  in  the  morning.  Approximately  two  months  before  I  turned  six.  I  had   been  busily  working  throughout  the  previous  week  to reorganize  my  mother's  sewing  kit  for  her.  I  was  beyond  ecstatic  to present  to  her  the  newly  organized  sewing  kit.  I  was  certain  she  would  have  been  so  proud  of  me.  Proud  to call  me  her  son.  The  only  thing  I  wasn't  aware  of  was  that  she  will  never  see  it  with  her  physical,  human  eyes.
I  was  excitedly  running  up  the  stairs  to  climb  into  her  bed  and  show  her  all  of  my  hard  work  and  dedication.  I  was  in  the  midst  of  prancing  up  the  stairs  when  my  father  came  running  down  with  my  mom  cradled  in  his  arms.  I  know  he  didn't  mean  to,  but  while  he  was  coming  down,  he  accidentally  kicked  over  the  sewing  kit.  I  was  in  complete  disarray.  I  had  no  idea  what  was  going  on.  
Before  I  knew  it,  two  paramedics  showed  up  in  my  living  room.  At  that  point,  Danny  and  I  stood  guard  at  the  stair  railing.  We  watched  the  mysterious  men  cautiously.  We  studied  their  every  move.  We  had  no  idea  what  they  were  doing.  My  father  was  no  where  to  be  found.  He  had  mysteriously  vanished  into  thin  air  from  what  I  could  tell.  One  of  the  paramedics  eventually  looked  over  at  us  and  told  us  to  go  to  our  room,  but  we  were  both  too  petrified  to  leave  our  spot.  After  what  seemed  like  an  eternity,  the  two  men  decided  to  put  my  mother  on  a  stretcher. They disappeared  just  as  fast  as  they  had  appeared.  Just  like  that,  everyone  was  gone  and  the  sewing  kit  was  in  shambles  all  over  the  stairs. The  rest  of  the  day  was  a  complete  blur  in  my memory  banks.  There  is  no  recollection  of  a  single  event  after  that.    
The  next  thing  I  knew,  we  were  at  a  funeral  home  deciding  on  a  headstone.  My  dad  was  in  tears,  but  Danny  and  I  seemed  to not  realize  anything  had  happened.  Days  after,  the  funeral  was  held.  I  don't  remember  crying  or  even  showing  any  emotion.  However,  I  do  remember  just  how  peaceful  and  gorgeous  she  was.  I  knew  at  the  moment  I  saw her  in  the  casket,  she  was  in  a  better  place.  She  was  with  her  mother,  father,  and  everyone  else  dear  to  her  in  Heaven.
It  wasn't  for  years  later  until  I  fully  and  truly   understood  the  whole  concept.  My  mother  was  never  to  come  back  in  her  physical,  earthly  form.  For  the  longest  time,  my  life  was  completely  and  utterly  ruined.  I  didn't  know  what  to  do  or  how  to  act.  However,  I  later  realized  that  one  day  I  will  be  back  with  my  beloved  mother  in  the  most  peaceful  place  to  ever  have  existed.

Mama woke me up
She embraced me sobbing and
stumbled down the stairs
in my arms, and I

stumbled down the stairs
in her arms, to daddy
in the kitchen, arms around each other
we were crying

but I had to go back, see
how I was
breathless on my bed
still warm

as if I was asleep, oh
you are thirteen
don't go, stay
here with me

Paramedics arrived
They put me in a bag
and carried me away
leaving me behind

The rooster swivels on its axis returning
coarse wind into the pyre of mad, mad tongues
raving alongside charred ivory. Lifted by sorry hands
from dying embers’ embrace and eased with foreign pity,
ceremoniously, into a cardboard crate wheeled against
the traffic, stumbling backwards through yellow canvases,
between my family dressed in black, to dress the void (deck),
mourners spitting soda into their cups, as word paddle upstream,
onto a thin futon within four walls stained with unfinished ghosts.
The doctor removes the white shroud like God coaxing pink light
on the first day and wine oozes through elastic veins to the far corners of my skin thin ventricular walls. One crack, in the doors and in my chest, paramedics in white blur in, heel first,
Pan-island couriers on reverse gear to the corner
of a numbered street, where I am delivered like a gladiator
thrown into the arena of nosy gazes, with the urgency of
hens clucking away from premeditated slaughter:
deep Christmas red on the tessellated parking lot.
Clumsy thumbs dialing 599, I moan inwardly
to the concentric circles of strangers retreating, erasing
me from cell-phone cameras. Then like a flip animation I
snap backwards, up 21 floors,
pause for about an hour on the ledge before smashing
backwards, back down, past kids scratching graffiti off the cement
and growing cigarettes in their mouths. The rain ascends and I take
wet cash from the driver while I fidget on the leather and throw up
mediocre coffee into my cup. I dig into my throat and return the bread
to its plastic bag and when the cab stops I fall left out onto another parking lot,
moonwalk up the stairs to where I unwrite my name in the
annals of failure and
shove the Fs of my past back
then
I take the bus instead.

September.
remember,
back in school
being seniors
meant we had rule.
we were on top
and nothing
would make us stop.
but that didn't mean
i didnt have deep secrets
in my dreams.
school had just begun
back when we still
had the sun.
but i had clouds closing in
thought i didn't tell a soul.
so i began my journey
into the deep, dark, hole.
October.
remember, when the days grew dark so fast.
but that didn't stop others from having a blast.
when i was asked to go,
i always said no.
because when the sun set,
that reminder became a threat.
i was busy
gathering what i need
to carry out my
one
last
final
deed.

November.
remember.
remember november?
i know you do.
i know you wish it wasn't true.
i know you wish i could make it undo.
but don't you see,
what people do or say
really does hurt me.
if you already know that,
why did you call me fat?
if you already knew i was sad,
why did you save what you had?
if you dont know why,
why did you let me die?

remember?
back in november?
sunday night
to
monday morning.

my heart stopped beating.

happy 18th, baby girl.
watch your blood swirl.
onto the floor
or down the drain.
outside her window,
it rained, and rained, and rained.
3 empty bottles by her bed.
mother's hands holding her head.
paramedics write it off
as suicide;
her own hands
is how she died.
now,
i know you remember.
back to december.
seniors you were,
but everything became
a sudden blur.
all the tears,
being blinked away.
wishing i could have stayed.
now that i'm gone,
you finally realize
what you had ll along.
even though you're too late,
you'll treat this matter
with more weight.
i wish you knew
before monday morning,
at 12:02.
september began.
october started to show.
november held all the signs.
december you are undermined.
remember how you felt
back in december?
feelings of then
will teach you
when it happens again.
so please,
learn from my death and me.
save the one for whose life
can be foreseen.
and lastly,
make me a promise,
never
ever
forget.
always
remember
december.

i don’t know how to
comfort humans, I don’t
always understand them, us, we
don’t find history or truth
to be gentle, respectful of the sweet,
the way we prefer
our medicine; our neighbors don’t
lend out even spoonfuls of sugar like
they used to, and all the gates and triple-locked
doors make the transition from momma’s house
to the warden’s all the easier,

i wouldn’t have known how to
tell him his momma wasn’t coming
she was going to find out about this from
a phone call from a doctor
who wouldn’t pronounce his name
right, no familiar hands were
going to help carry him into his chariot

but when he was laying on
the cement, having been dragged
out of the car that flipped twice
by people who were “basically
paramedics, and knew they
didn’t have to stabilize his spine before
moving him,” who were basically just
used to paramedics not showing up
when they called, when he was
laying on the cement, he never called for his
mother or father or sister or
any one else who might have found a way to leave him, he
just screamed out
at
or
for
God,

and either way, I just kept mumbling
“preach.”

Lily marked the gravestone. A white streak across grey cobble, the crumbling visage of a turning sky reflected in the puddle beside her. New dusk brimmed grey gold, a heady dust galloped with the rising easterly winds, a white streak across grey skies. Lily marked the edge of her notebook, nine-past-ten, the end of second period, a break in consciousness, then a tang of blood from her swollen gums. Lenin rose above the rooftops, a hand brushed her forehead as the paramedics left, a black bag.

The answer was heat death, compartmentalised energy, like fireworks falling into darkness. Burning rice, spilt coffee, Ain’s smile. Nights on counter, pad paper, day old rain. Lily fell into a nightmare, smooth black, a single light dissipating as the universe died. She spat blood, missed the bus and collapsed on the walk to school.

It was the anniversary. Setting sun, plumes of white, the exit sigh of a wasted day. Lily woke hours later. She returned to an empty home, suffocated in a dream and rose four hours too early for school. Climbing the roof, she watched the sun rise, grey and formless.

There was ash in the hallway to class, the remnants of the incense from yesterday’s memorial, pencil shavings from the forest, fingers blurring out of definition like the trees around her, the soft empty breath of loose soil. Ain came to the store on a night like this, wind gathered silent around her frame. They found themselves atop a bus shelter, lights rising from a sea of nothingness.

Eight-forty-five, the chalk felt heavy in Lily’s hand, white dash across infinity, city blackout. Everyone went to see the dam, cracked pavement, Ain dripping blood, Lily wreathed in ravens. Below the river, forest spirits wove among power lines, bird bones cracked beneath the soles of children, motes rose. Lily lost sight of Ain, the dam broke and children cheered.

Time passed. Ceaseless time.

Lily drifted through petroleum smoke, dashi, the burning husks of gods. She watched the river ryū sweep through her street, turbid with the broken heads of graves, mad with phantoms. She visited memories yet to form, nurseries of dust, cosmic return of the infinite perceiving itself. She cried, remembering everything, the smell Ain’s wet hair, ricochet of a glass bottle, Lenin’s dirt-smeared skin, the birth and death of the universe; mother unable to afford pad paper, sakura bursting the sky pink, couples riding past on too expensive bikes, father drunk on sake. Ribbons of light danced around Lily, a playful susurration, feeding her more and more memories.

Isn’t it beautiful? Existence burning through itself? A departure with no ending, no beginning, no becoming? Haven’t you lived a full life? Won’t you live it again?

Lily screamed. Split dam flooded the empty grave. The same smell of soy, dust and sweat every day. Lack birthed in the space between, like teeth, lacuna bleeding. Nightmares and old memories pouring out like a knife. Ryū stiffened, red streak across the sky, tail burying into the earth. Rice steam filled the air, a passing train carried Ain and Lily into the city, crowds of smoke, her crescent eyes reflected in a storefront, the eyes her mother loved. April awakening of the forest gods, cool spring rustled the hair around her neck, a humid breath descended from the mountain to the lake. Warm rain fell in sheets, city smudged out of focus, bokeh lights departing, Ain’s wet skin—

The city retracted; a whimper escaped her mouth; her fingers passed through power lines, wood smoke, pavement; seasons collapsed, superimposed like holograms, snow and humus; gyoza steamed, air sirens blared beneath the shadow of foreign planes; kodama rose as ancient trees reclaimed the land; volcanic blasts shook the ocean, AI sped to singularity; reality vanished like light falling off a mirror and Lily ceased to feel.

Space is illusory.

Lily.

It travels ceaselessly through itself.

Lily, stop.

And we don’t exist.

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, grabbing Lily’s wrists. “Haven’t we done this enough?”

fear and sweat, flashin' gear
writin' rapz in hectic, but: yeaaah!
detached paramedics, but: yeeeah!
tizz alive, he and me, didn't die

who am i? will i be a version of me
free from dat ******* of abuse, b?
who would tell you the truth? me?
dunno, demons inside wear masks

they hide, whisper, mouth odor like gas
i'm behind, they passed by, they see,
know and feel dat i'm blind -- what is real?
and what's not? i know diz be god

"good" and "god" are like moon and sun
but if i use, then i run, will forget wise men
and it's bleeding through my eyes when
i'm unable to arise and sling like five men

codes from the land of oblivion
demons sending messages: dey fo'
da trashcan, you may be from aspen,
or a child of da bronx: good remains good

wrongs remain wrongs, stuck in-between
writing songs like cage fighters, man bites
dog, my weapon may be a pen or a glock:
if i do, use, take or abuse drugs: i'll fail

the loft, the jail, the yacht, the hate
hell ain't a snake pit but a desperate living,
shivering, lonely, no homeys, suffering
ignorant and angry, indifferent, cranky

still: a flickering, glimmering, somewhen

rock bottom, i hit it, my addict: i'm wit him
he within' me, steely and sneaky, peace
of ****, b, chasin' the thrill just to **** me
i will be dyin', will be fightin', skies brighten

no bullshittin, johnny weeks, so high,
delusional: "i'm a viking", drugs are unusual
why do i used dem as much dat i felt like
jim carrey as "truman" -- observed, being

followed; diz a good state to be in?
ya know da answer, my friend, shake
your own hand, accept ya name
leave da climate of coldness

diz requires boldness, but ya know what?
the addicted demons hate us like themselves
do not let 'em do dat
lock em in an inner shelf, wit a key

call it as you like, dear friend, i call it
"SELF-LOVE", ooooh boy: what a word,
what a term, your stomach may rage now:
fierce, furious demons being in flames

heaven yeah, let em burn, it's your turn,
put your life into god's hands, soft hands
clean yourself, wash ya hands, the
end of this poem must not be ours


**********      **

HELP: SOMETIMES IN PERSON, EVERY DAY ONLINE, CARING, FOR FREE. DON'T HESITATE TO MAIL ME, IN CASE YOU GOT ANY QUESTIONS. I WILL BE ANSWERING.

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Seven on my neck, six on my chest, five on my hands, one on a thigh, and one on each knee.

Scar one; Our voices were cut mid-sentence when you swerved onto our side of the road.
Scar two; For the first time, Time was in slow-motion. You made it possible to count the silent seconds.
Scar three; Seven seconds in, my mum cried a religious code, "Oh my God!"
Scar four; You made me believe that's the last thing I'd hear before I'd leave.
Scar five; ... Will we survive?
Scar six; My heart kicks in gear, blood flows to areas that suspect a mother's worst fear.
Scar seven; We're far from Heaven.

Scar eight; August 29, 2007. You made me remember this date.
Scar nine; The words I manage from my ****** throat that night, "Is everyone alright?"
Scar ten; You showed me magic tricks were real. The bowl in my hands vanished with the help of the air bag, sending pieces to the back for another life to steal.
Scar eleven; Can you possibly imagine feeling, but not seeing your cold, stinging, cut throat singing? Singing red, just pouring your heart into it?
Scar twelve; You set two fires to feed. One in my heart and one on my knees.
Scar thirteen; My brother hadn't seen anything but smoke when he woke from his dreams.

Scar fourteen; I know you're a father, have you met mine? No, you were gone before you could tell him his family wasn't fine, and that you may have had a little too much wine.
Scar fifteen; Like a mother duck rushing her ducklings across the road, you put mine in full-mother-mode.
Scar sixteen; When the paramedics came, they mistaken the taco salad for my brain.
Scar seventeen; The way you leaned on our totalled car, smoking a cigarette, not a scratch on you, not a sign of regret.
Scar eighteen; After the hospital, you made it almost impossible for Nan to get me into her car.

Scar nineteen; My friends waited 'till late, crying, thinking I was dead, and my mother and brother, dead. Have you ever had someone mess with your head?

Scar twenty; July 23, 2012. I got my driver licence. And by now, they've probably given your's back to you. This isn't your first time, this isn't my first rhyme.
Scar twenty-one; Driving at night, every night, I still see your headlights right in front of me. My body is still braced so don't you think you left no trace.

Scars. I had more but they've healed. I have 21 scars that you meant because at that number, that's no 'accident'.

Paramedic 1:

"He's losing so much blood."

Paramedic 2:

"It's a miracle if he can make it past this."



Saturday night, and I'm in the back of an ambulance,
But not in soul, just in body, oh and in the company of so many wires,
I can't tell where they end and where I begin,
But the paramedics say there was a tragic accident and some flying tires.

We reach the ER, my stretcher is flying on the white tiles,
And soon enough I'm greeted by more wires than I can count,
They're saying that they want to hear my heart,
So I'm opened up past layers of tissues and my heartbeat is playing aloud.

I'm somewhere in a circus, learning how to walk on a tightrope,
One arm on the verge of life, the other on the verge on death,
And my feet are stronger than they've ever been,
I'm not afraid of the fall, I'm afraid they'll see the mark I've had since birth.

And they do, I see it in the face of those people wearing white scrubs,
Their faces become the color of their operating room attire,
They don't know what to do with me,
As they come to realize what's got me here is not the flying tires.

They see my heart, a land that is home to no one,
Yet a massacre is taking place between the northerns and the southerns,
A border holding together the mismatched territories,
But there is no compromising between two armies this stubborn.

Each side wanting to flood the other, wanting to conquer,
And the small canal that was once an uncharted place of peace,
Is now holding a rowing contest to the mind of the victim - me -
Who will reach it first and incorporate their power with claws and teeth...?

It was the time to surrender, ending all attempts at making amends,
And watch cannibals sailing in rivers of blood,
They think each accelerated beat is a new victory,
Yet it was a far away cry from it, it was a new tear, a new cut.

And when each side invades the other, they claim it as their own,
But they are only emigrants thinking they can reconstruct a desert,
It was only a land of chaos, they themselves have caused,
Where was once life flowing in veins, is now where resources are tethered.

And with no winner, the end approached,
The curtains already sweeping the ground,
Doctors wiping sweat from their foreheads,
Letting the hospital gown cover the battleground.




Paramedic 2:

"Maybe there's a wife we can call, to you know ... deliver the news..."

Paramedic 1:

"It appears, he just went out for a drive in the middle of the night, with no phone or ID... not even his driver's license..."

Paramedic 2:

"Maybe it wasn't even his car..."



THE END

A firetruck races past the isolate Blue Fox and infinity. Dulcimer clatters fading brickwork on the cross markets and churches where blind men are the imagining heaven. Luminescent Volcanic leaves heated from sunfire beautiful in the Spring choke lanes which are battered by abstract cavern homes. What happened to the Orient Harpsichord Serenity? Where does the Blue Fox go? Incense Markets Sauna with Smoke are busy in Denpasar while I'm here at a North American shopping mall where Ivory Columns cradled in violet fauna do wait sturdy and enchanted in rows.
Here I'm waiting by the leather clay shade bench in silent meditation breathing community whispers and listening clear to water pour from the lionhead fountain. Parrots caw atop a wide gated ceiling facing Empyreus.

There is a fire in America. The Blue Fox is hidden beneath firs and palms bathing in humidity. The Blue Fox is writing prophecies of economic collapse and rampant pointless murders making the newspapers. Ash storms blazing while banana painted trucks row on row attend to Victorian wood panels cooling to onyx powder in too short a time. There is no room for learning when The End Times go too quickly.
I'm listening to Bob Dylan scream instrumental prayer on harmonica rough against my ears. The Blue Fox treads February Beaches a few hundred miles from Australia and whistling the words of flowers in his head. He chews on wheatgrass jangling change in his fur pockets like those cartoons. He is the vision of Bohemia, he is an active star dazzled in this beguiled galaxy, yet in his spine he carries the turmoil doppleganger kept by all and known by none.
The firetrucks are doing all they can to quell the lung-poison vase boiling an apartment dancing inside but it continues to grow in its enraged fury.

There's a fire in America boys and girls, come around and see.
Canoes of memorial gold row through oppression and genocide, the Inuits and First Peoples of ancient years are wondering too where the blue fox went when agony cries the air. Stories of wisdom replaced with stories of war. Balaclavas labyrinthine through  exotic Bazaars thick with music and plants hanging off fishhooks and brass coat hangers while I write and dream of such Valhallas in my shopping mall on a quiet afternoon.
Bill is playing the banjo with faded paint and a single broken string, there he is on Yates! Cowboy hat made of charcoal velvet holding a meager collection of change.  
Stephen Schizophrenia is lying on his back watching aluminum kingdoms hover on by expanding nimbus clouds. He has eleven dollars to his name along with a damaged half torn belt with his initials engraved on the buckle  He taps his feet to Edith Piaf howling "La Vie En Rose" while an Airplane collides with his sacred personal aluminum palace, suddenly he can't block out the repressed memories he's fought decades to hide deep and dark in his bleak jazz enthralled brains.

Maybe we're all supposed to fall apart. Maybe we're designed to hurt and cause hurt. Where is that ****** Blue Fox? He's ebullient, thoughts fragmented in sharp bliss glass cutting him through while he rolls around the sands catching Buddha particles in his paws digging holes on Kuta Beach to his Idyllic land where happiness is forever and therefore false.

The Blue Fox falls in love overwhelming with everybody and every soul. So many souls by the billions every place! Even the tyrants. Even the demons. Even the necrophiliac scoring an OD'd brunette at twenty six from Anaheim who collapsed flatlined by prescriptions on a 3rd floor Complex.
He adores the narcissist who loves everybody as fully as The Blue Fox as long as they are herself. She is the harmonic untainted flytrap unaware of its own venomous nature but jealous of Summer and jealous of those whose names are heralded through generation to generation.
He adores The addict who is hollow of everything but the ****** sizzling under his patchy skin while he sinks from divinity swelling through his heart. He smiles while the remaining light dies inside him, left with only the regret remedies of suicide.
He adores The artist who fled to the big City and became nothing but watered down pigment after the Capitalists tossed him off the nearest skyscraper shouting pretentious metaphors.

The Blue Fox loves them all! He has no concept of the corrupt, or the lazy, or the greedy and needy and crazy and forgotten. They are all equal to him! The Blue Fox is knelt on paisley carpet smooth and spectacular! His regular India ashram, uplifting his body and his mind. The blue fox knows no doubt. Or anxiety, frailty or tears. He has no impulse or desire. The Blue Fox is joy in form and breathing spectrums of color mixing to combinations we cannot perceive.

There is a fire in america. It rages on unstoppable. It engulfs countries thousands of miles and histories away. It swallows the morning, noon and night. It protrudes disease in its wake. It heats up the ozone layer allowing radiation to make us more than cancer the zodiac. It causes our terror. It blots out our ardor. It havocs our heroes. Nothing is clean anymore. There is a fire in America.

And America is the world!  I'm watching out the front doors of this shopping mall where an elderly man trips at the food court escalator and becomes more renowned with every lethal collision down the tiles of freedom. Paramedics arrive shortly after and attend to another scalded by that same fire.
Up and up it goes!

These dark thoughts
will destroy me-
ice too thin,
beneath shattered-glass steps.
Desperate schemes conspire
to employ me;
paramedics
fathom the depths

The sirens blared that 4th of July
Officer Duncan gave Mammy a ride
An emergency dash to the hospital
He’s 2 months premature Mammy cried

Deaf, dumb and blind is what the doctors said
To our mother when Sammy was born
But none of us kids ever were told
Until Sammy was stable and grown

Pappy declared that they’d both be fine
Not believing dire news doctors gave
We happily named him Uncle Sam
Trusting in him to be strong and brave

His 1st 5 months in an incubator
Hooked up to every device
In Newton Wellesley Hospital, 1959
A miracle saved his life

Reaching gloved hands through holes in the side
Weighing just a bit over 2 pounds
Looking more like a spindly ET
I was amazed to be hearing breath sounds

Sam worked on doubling his weight by Christmas
Nothing seemed easy or fast
Still Mammy survived the eclampsia
And Sammy went home at last

Returning a few years later
Sammy’s doctor she would find
To show off to all the nurses
Her son NOT deaf, dumb and blind

I so love my brother Sammy
Always felt like a sister and mother
I’d give all I have for the time
Just a minute more with my dear brother

I’d speak to you of those 57 years
Of the great whirligig you carved with your hands
All the times you showed up for me
Through the good and the bad our love stands

You wasted no time hating anybody
Children and dogs always your friends
Quick for a laugh despite any lack
I draw comfort that all your pain ends

The sirens blared once again for you
The ambulance came, the paramedics tried
Racing you trying to save you
All in vain, in the OR you died


Like Tommy’s rock opera is over
Perhaps you paused to speak to a stray dog
While keeping your divine appointment
By reaching right into the hand of God

day negative nine hundred and something:
Sally starts with aspirin. (She has done the math- 37 if you're lucky, 43 to be safe. And 50, just in case.) She falls asleep after 35. When she opens her eyes, it is dark and nauseous. Sally stares glumly as the glowing numbers flit on her alarm clock. 17 hours, maybe 18. ****.

day zero:
She is alone in the parking lot. She checks the time on the radio, glances at the back entrance of the BevMo building. Sally cranks the volume **** clockwise, and reaches into the backseat. Unscrews the bottle, swallows two, hesitates-- swallows two more. Her throat is tight, bone-dry. Zipping up the outer pocket of the ancient leather pack is uncharacteristically tricky. The driver's side door opens, and she smiles.

day one:
The battery light on her ****** flip-phone blinks red, in sync with the beeping of the EKG machine. She wonders if the read-out will show her disappointment. Sally's father sits motionless in the corner of the tiny room. Sleep will not come, though not for lack of trying. She glares at the ceiling. Tangled up in tubes, wires, and needles, Sally counts the ugly, white tiles. Again, she has failed.

day two:
Her parents' blue Volkswagen follows the McCormick ambulance. Sally looks awkwardly at the chiseled EMT stationed next to her. He smiles, offering comfort. It is staunchly refused. Later, the paramedics will roll her through the triple-locked doors, still strapped to the stretcher, where a room full of hollow teenagers will stare her down. They will appear as empty as she feels. Nurses will make jokes, and Sally will quickly understand that she must pretend to laugh. She will look them in the eyes and lie through teeth just out of braces, telling herself, "at least I tried."

day four:
Sally waves goodbye to the boy who tried to drink drain cleaner, carefully avoiding the the gaze of the boy who followed her into her room the night before. (She tried to tell, but no one listened.) After sloshing through mountains of concerned texts, emails, and phone messages she stops for an impromptu celebratory dinner on the way home. Sally has learned only to redefine and reinforce the *******. "I'm fine."

day seven:
The new medication has stolen her concentration. She chucks it. She can no longer sit still, begs her parents to teach her how to drive. She learns that the Volkswagen is far less austere from the inside, though the front bumper will be forever tinged with nostalgia.

day fourteen:
She attends the first court-mandated therapy session. Not that bad. The truth is hard… but deception second-nature.

day fifty-nine:
Sally no longer sleeps. Her mind is a city at night and her thoughts are technicolor billboards, all screaming the same message: 'You put me in the hospital and you never even called.'

day three hundred and forty-eight:
She practices tying nooses with a shoelace in the dark.

day three hundred and sixty-four:
She hangs herself in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Third time's a charm…
Right?

day three hundred and sixty-five:
Sally awakens on the cold floor. Again, she is surrounded by tiles.
Those white ******* tiles. Her neck bruised, a broken shoelace trails to the floor. Quietly, she resigns herself to life.
There is nothing left to ****.


s.h.

Brooke hit it off with Edric from the moment they met.

The dangerously ****, tattooed ex-SEAL and always a poet, Detective for the LAPD, remains as one of the best friends she’s ever had, the main star in her wildest fantasies.
When they met he did not see her that way. And she would have died of embarrassment if he found out she was still a ******. And he was about to stake his claim, struggling to keep his attraction to the beautiful, blond dancer a secret.
He was not good enough for her; that is what he thought. On a day when an attacker targeted Brooke, Edric’s protective instincts went into overdrive.
With the attraction between them burning like a torch flame, he would do whatever it took to protect her and tell her they were meant to be together.  
One evening, deciding to express her love for her, Edric waited outside the door, keeping watch over the woman he loved secretly. Then he saw her through the curtain, dressed in her black fur coat.
Not realizing that she was being watched, yet fantasizing about the man of her dreams, Brooke lowered her fur coat standing in front of her mirror.
Her soft ******* protruding out from her black lace bra, in her mind waiting for Edric’s hands to touch her love her, want her like she wanted him... As the coat slipped down her black lace skimpy ******* seemed so inviting. Her dreams of him were getting so vivid. She would imagine him standing over her, kneeling, as he slipped his hand under the cover, exploring her body, wanting her, making her desire so real. Seeing Brooke in her lingerie, he was awestruck by her beauty and wondered what to do next.
Hesitatingly, he moved towards the door and to his shock saw a shadow, moving slowly, stealthily, trying to pry the windows. Failing to open the window, he moved towards the door. He pulled out a bunch of keys trying out one by one. Edric’s first response was to call for backup. He called leading detective Donovan Mallow his partner. Then the shadow opened Brooke’s door and started creeping in, Edric wasting no time, Edric charged to stop him. Suddenly he heard a shot that rang out into the night. There was Brooke standing in her black lace bra and *******, holding a gun and the intruder lay dead on the floor.

“Brooke drop the gun, please Brooke drop the gun.” Brooke was shaking… “Brooke, sweetheart, drop the gun. “She looked at Edric and let the gun fall to the floor softly.  On the verge of tears, petrified out of her wits since she had never used a gun before,  and to **** a man, she shook violently. Edric walked over to her and picks her and covered her half naked body with his coat.
When Detective Donovan showed up, Edric held her close while the former checked  the body and called for the paramedics and further back up. When the police came, CIS took finger prints, investigating the crime scene.
Edric found Brooke some clothes and dressed her, escorting her to the precinct for recording of her statement. She was questioned and released.
With Edric’s story and Detective Donovan backing her up, she was released. Not wanting to disturb the crime scene, Edric escorted her to his home and put her in bed. Brooke, I need to tell you something, is what he said.
“I am listening”…Brooke was shivering after having gone through the trauma, yet attentive listening to the man that she had secretly admired. “I want you to know, I love you”.  “You love me? I love you too. I always have.” Brooke looked at Edric with an adulation emanating from her very soul.
As an instinctive response, shivering, she let her head lean on his shoulder. “Edric then please make love to me. I have yearned for you so long”.
As the sun slipped from its perch in the sky slowly, drawing well into the darkness, the shores where the waves would roll and sigh, Edric slowly undressed Brooke, one piece at a time. As he took off her blouse admiring her beautiful soft protruding ******* with each moment her ******* getting hard. Taking  off her pants and there were the black lace ******* he had seen from the window. Her firm and tight stomach and legs, she looked so delectably **** and beautiful. She was lying with a look of anticipation on her face. He enveloped her with his arms and kissed her softly, passionately. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Edric, I have to tell you.” Brooke whispered in his ear. “Later Brooke, you can tell me later.” He was so aroused and was getting so hard. “No, Edric now.. I have to tell you now.” Edric stopped and looked at her, “What is it darling?”
“Edric I am a ******. You are my first man. I have never been with another man.” Edric sat there and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew then that he had to be gentle. A wrong step and he would scare Brooke. He held her hand and kissed it.
"I kind of suspected but am surprised. You always had a naïve gentleness and girlishness about you. You always seemed so vulnerable that I always wanted to protect. You always had affected me in a way that I couldn't explain; no other woman has ever done that to me.”

Saying that he helped her dress and holding her hand led her towards the ****** beach outside his cottage. Wrapping her in his arms, they watched the beautiful glow of the stars, eyes aglow with passion of locked hands. Edric spoke his favorite lyrics, into her mouth as he started kissing her.
What a poet was he!! Impatience getting the better of her, “Edric, please make love to me… Oh! how I want you.”
His kisses were soft but passionate; they started at her lips to the base of her neck sliding down to her *******. When they got to her stomach her breath trembled, yearning for more.
Electric shocks ran down her spine. She almost screamed. The winds gently swirled, dancing to their rhythm of their passion. A girl, morphed that sweet evening, as Edric make sweet passionate love to her and made her into a blossoming woman.
Guess, there is nothing in the world that matched the feeling of eclectic emotions that were born that night. When a tired sun finally arose as a grim reminder of the end of an ethereal night, it sighed endlessly, spreading a gentle caress across Brooke’s cheek, pledging that she was bound to Eric for eternity.

Debbie Brooks 2014 -