Old Numbers On New Streets

But the boy, he muttered in his last breath, "Don't whisper my name like it's something special." He turned and was lost to the night. I stood, my fingers over my lips in case they felt like being naive again and whispering more names of dead boys.

- - -

Something is not right. I am not alone in this white house, but I haven't seen another monster in days. Not since I sat at the end of my driveway and watched the midnight traffic. Not since I fled the house and spent my insomniac hours with others. I left things, and when I returned - and when I returned. Oh, how things have changed. Something is not right here.

- - -

I have been around for 4 years. I have been running the streets with and crashing the weddings of the famous faces of this city. I have followed the rules and broken every law there is. We have knocked down more kings and masters and tyrants than these children have ever known. They are walking our city streets as if they own the world, weapons strapped to their hips. They're spitting at our feet and sneering in our faces. Alone, they cower in our shadow. But when they come with their armies of youth, they force us back because we follow the rules. We keep the peace and order and let travellers know that this city has retained its sanity. These children follow no rules. These children are burning our city down.

- - -

Would you believe me if I told you that everything I say means something else?

We've Been Sleep-Counting

She's been whispering in my ear all evening, warning me of the sunset. This woman named Insomnia kissed my ears all evening because she wanted me to herself in the following hours. She couldn't wait to lay down beside me and traces little broken hearts into my chest. Her words carressed my ears, and her fingers danced along my spinal cord all evening just so she could have me alone for a few fleeting hours. Insomnia loved me with my dark purple scars under my eyes. I loved Insomnia and the way she made me feel like the last person alive.

- - -

This isn't a cry out for help. I'm not that kind of girl (person, child, thing). Sound boy has been telling me all about his own sleeping problems, even if he doesn't think I've been listening. He whispers them into the night and hopes that someone hears him and saves him from himself. His heart may be more scarred than his arms.

- - -

Cancer boy must have finally fallen prey to the disease in his knees. He said he was going to walk until his legs wouldn't walk anymore. Perhaps his knees gave out in the middle of a freeway. It would be ironic for his freedom to end there, right after he paid his $1.25 in nickles and dimes. He tells me that it worries him that someone will raise the price up again. He wants to know why he has to pay for a freeway. Because you live on it, I told him. He always throws an extra nickle in now.

- - -

I was in a car wreck on Saturday. My brother couldn't break fast enough, and I watched as his courage crashed through the windshield. He's so broken now. He walks as if his legs are made of glass and might break if he runs. He stands close to me now and is always making sure I'm all right. I was in the passenger seat. I wonder if he's all right, but I never ask him anymore. I know he isn't. I know he won't be all right for a long time.

- - -

I've been falling asleep to sunrises and hoping that I never wake back up.

Vestigial Numbers

I hate the summer, said the little girl. I hate it because it makes me feel so alone. And when I feel alone, I just cry rivers and rivers of crocodile tears because I don't know what else to do. I haven't anything else to do. I'm so alone, and I feel it in the summer. It must be all those warm nights of sipping lemonade and catching fireflies in mason jars.

- - -

I've run out of options. I've exhausted my every source. I'm too afraid to ask of you because then I'll seem childish and clingy. This isn't puppy love I'm after because we're both grown - grown into people. People with nothing on their minds but destruction and how to cause it. What have we become? No one should love chaos as much as we do. No one.

- - -

I won't lie about this (yes, I will). I've been sitting on the hood of my mother's old Taurus in the driveway just waiting for my courage to get me to walk to your house. I know it's on the other side of town, but I owe you a late night, early morning visit. We've always been about giving and taking, but what now? I'm a coward, and you're a ghost. I'm chasing dead ends and falling asleep to dial tones. I want nothing more than to tell you bad jokes over the phone and hug you on my porch at four in the morning.

- - -

I know that this will all come crashing down around me since we're both horrible at break-ups, and that's where we're headed. That's where the whole world is headed. But I don't want us to come to that. We've lived our whole lives as an extension of the world; it's vestigial structures; it's useless limbs. So I'm on my knees and I'm begging you and I'm not giving up on you (like I've given up on so many others). I'm on my knees, and I'm begging you: please don't give up on me either. I'll get there. It's just a matter of time.

Running Low On Numbers

This may very well be the end to us. I've reached that line I said I would never cross, and you're running across it like it's nothing. How can I follow you when my body won't move? My mind is screaming no, but my heart is crying out yes! Oh, darling, you've made me into such a cliche.

- - -

I woke up early this morning and dragged an industrial black marker across the flesh over my left shoulder until the skin was dripping with ink. My heart felt suffocated, but I knew my ribcage would hold back the poison. I have to be honest here. It felt good to fall back into my simple addiction. After all, ink poisoning only kills about three people a year. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Three people isn't enough.

- - -

I scribbled until my chest ached from the pressure, and my shoulder hurt to move. My shirt was the thin layer that saved me from the world's judgement. Without it, I would have nothing but my blackened skin and a lie on my tongue about how it got there. Nothing could explain it. It was too perfect, too beautiful. It looked like art painted across my shoulderblade. I wanted my right to match, but I'm right-handed and didn't have the time to learn my left hand to work.

- - -

Cancer boy thinks I'm out to get him. I would love to color his ribs black and blue just because he would mourn the lose of his perfect white skin. Sound boy told me that I scare him. With shoulders like mine, who couldn't I scare? I wanted to trace his spine with my marker and number each vertebrae as if connecting them would create something beautiful.