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.

Summer Solstice: A Story of Longing

Here's the skinny... years from now, when every speck of memory of the Internet is forgotten, a man's aching heart bursts into flames and gathers dust. He mouths words of gypsy tongues longing for a good, sometimes collected, voice of this doe eyed girl (with make-up of course). "There was this time when everything fits the molds and crevices, I don't want those days over," he says.

Stories about parks and malfunction.

She wakes up drenched with sweat and the smell of wires. Another dream of tubes and codes in break neck speed. There's a cauldron of doldrums next to her bed, she stews it, mixing fragments of dreams about foot wars and trying to skip stones over the river; taking a deep breath she remembers. "Those who forget lose so much," she says.

She remembers fragments. He struggles to remember anything at all. Let's not make this happen.

Those same two people were walking at different time zones but staring at the same sky that evening, quietly sighing to themselves about lost space and life and love. "Their eyes speak volumes but what you don't topple over doesn't spill," the Moon says to the bright star of Summer.

"I have faith in them. She prays," was the star's only reply.

Sometime around June, the planets missing collision for the 4653216 time, still singing the blues with the most red dancing shoes, the momentum surging forward; the time came. Santa Claus just quit his job and he's giving away presents earlier this year.

"Bahamas may have sunk, but that doesn't mean we're sinking with it," he whispers. His voice is as hot as the season. He remembers.

"When day breaks, we'll fix it," she whispers back. Her breath is as cold as the season... and as close as humanly possible to his ear. She remembers.

At least, even for only this June day, they were together.

(Let's not make this happen.)

And at the soft whisper of the wind, listening to them, it whispers back, "Lifespan is their new forever."

A boy's choir sings. The walls speak. Shoes tap. The cross still hangs. The power turns off.

.0507.