Happy

William would turn in his grave when he reads this and Hunter would return to shoot himself again, these were the words etched at the bathroom stall the young buck was sitting in. He kept on reading them over and over trying to grasp sense and enlightenment with the beatific, why his eyes itched with tears and mascara, why his knuckles are soaked with blood, the smell caked in his fingertips, his shirt ripped into shreds, pieces of broken down sympathy and dignity scattered the bathroom floor with the sections of his cashmere sweater that can’t be stitched back in the story, left for mere evidence. Glancing at his wristwatch the face tells him its 9:15, 2 hours too late for his chance meeting with his father, the man that isn’t proud of him one bit, not proud of his fake eyelashes and inconsistent swagger, because oh dear God he wouldn’t want to be cursed with a son like his.

He smeared his bloodline across the writing on the door and every 5 minutes lets his eyes wonder around the cubicle, his own private world with his own private theme song, channeling the Golden Girls and Cheers and Friends, feeling nostalgic for a decade past that he wasn’t even born in to be nostalgic for. And he died that night for the 5^th time only to be reborn again in misery and nostalgia and his goddamn paper trails all over place, everything was his, but at the same time it wasn’t worth spit, not worth it when the only person you value the most in your life turned back and walked out like there wasn’t any door there to begin with. So he sits there and he bawls his little eyes out, messing up the blush he just put on an hour ago, his feet scraping the drenched floor, his knees aching and he’s praying for it to stop shaking uncontrollably, the blisters in his palms are small targets like burnt cigarette holes in his tattered frame. Betty Davis can’t help you now, kiddo. Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.

Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.

That blanket quilt muffled the sound, the walls all held their tongues, not even blinking to pass certain judgment, and those ribs bruised from kicking and screaming wants attention from white coats, memories hid behind truths uttered to no man. 1 word and it was all over, but his teeth and gums bled royal blue, the camera lens, unforgiving. He shoved it away and tried to stand at his own volition but his beaten down body, scarred for life, wouldn’t want to cooperate, like his bowels and human urges, and it made him dirty and disgusted with his own skin, his own flesh and blood, his own insides. So he just sat there condemning himself, promising he’ll never come out, what’s left of his mandible clenched. The ghosts are already haunting him this fast and this early and this ruthless. His heels broken in two, it was the Earth’s worst color scheme.

He read the words etched at the bathroom stall, the world empty when he howled back at it, forever those words would be imprinted on the walls of his cerebral cortex, it shall be engraved on his headstone, damning himself when he didn’t die the 6^th time that night. He kept repeating to himself, with a crawl to the sink, a sigh into the dark, “Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.”

And with his own blood he scribbled on the floor: Oh, Allen. Where are you now?

.040108.