THERE IS NO MORE ROOM FOR HEART ATTACKS HERE,
says a sign up above your head in a crowded restuarant,
somewhere south, somewhere wrong, somewhere that doesn’t seem
clean

you were reading american ****** in an abandoned parking lot when it hit you
you didn’t call
she was riding her bike down the street two blocks down from hers that you used to reside on,
she puked on the side of your house where your car used to be parked without a purpose other than thinking about your hands

you don’t think of her unless you’re hurting
you don’t think of her unless you start remembering the summer heat
and how, for someone so particularly young, she had way too many
lines in her face, you wondered, you always wondered, where they had
come from

because the coffee cup breaks
you don’t live here anymore
she isn’t she no longer, she is a woman now
full bodied, bigger *******, yet still hiding in shadows, those shadows
you created from babysitting all the demons that possessed her and
then vanishing along with them

you ask yourself what she asks herself
where is the line?
where is the part where they come back and clean up the dinner table and let you rest outside on the swingset, with your hands in the air, with flowers in your hair, forgetting that the moment you stop and look is the moment you realize you took way too long to
keep it lasting longer

all you were saying was this wasn’t a test
it wasn’t something that you could beep a red light to and say NO
there was eggs, there was razors, and there was a small walk to and from the store that took longer than an entire war,
yet you picked this route
yet you decided to keep the scars and wash your hands

the waitress picks up the broken glass and smiles
hands you another empty coffee cup
you fill it up the way you used to fill it up before you couldn’t
black coffee, a sugar packet, one tablespoon of cream

you look back to the sign above your head
once again, reading the neon sign,

THERE IS NO MORE ROOM FOR HEART ATTACKS HERE

now,
do you smile or do you scream?

I've been dead for quite a few years now, well not a few years fifteen maybe a little longer I lost track of time. I usually stand here on the corner of the old burger joint that's sadly closing down soon due to maintenance, this place is apart of me it's where I spent my last few hours before I got mugged and shot by some wasted ****  trying to rob the place, he put a bullet between my eyes because I got the money away from him, surprisingly enough he didn't run off with it after it all laid across my dead body. But I don't let the past haunt me, I'm just apart of the past that haunts the place so what good does it make?

I never really bother anyone, just watch the pedestrians go by, old friends of mine age like whine actually more like cheese but I'm just glad they're all doing well, seeming to have forgotten me and it makes me realize I truly am dead. If anything there is the one who makes me feel alive, Sofia, the woman who works from morning to noon at the restaurant. I know that she can not see me but she brings the light of Heaven into my purgatory.

I sit at an empty rounded table in the back of the room watching her greet customers with her sacred smile, she passes by my table and I expect her to notice me and take my order but she moves along. After her shift is over I follow her outside, often holding the door open for her, she's worked here for fifteen years and she just thinks they installed automatic doors. Sofia leads me to the street corner by the cross walk, she slams her fist onto the button and waits for the orange hand to appear and crosses the street, vanishing behind the speeding cars. Though I try I cannot follow her, if I step one foot of this curb I fast forward back to the restuarant and there I wait patiently for her to come in the morning.

Sofia came and was not herself, her dark complexion had gone to pale and red with fury. She ended her shift early, charging out the doors as I sprinted behind her, on the left of me was a Sikh man sitting against the walls of another cafe on a small rug playing a flute, quickly and without thinking, I possessed his body and played a favorite tune of mine, it's sound came out more beautiful than I expected. People began to crowd around as I got louder and louder and before my eyes was Sofia herself, tears of joy streamed down her face and she smiled and said

" I remember Robert, I remember"