Battery-Powered Boy From Texas

The boy was made from scraps, bits of metal and slivers of plastic and glass salvaged from the wreckage of one thousand airplane crashes. Inside his makeshift chassis is a heart held together with electrical tape and copper wires tied in knots.

The engineers down in Texas installed cracked camera lenses in the sockets on his face, a reel of 35 millimeter film spinning through a series of levers in his head. Everything powered by a 40 watt light bulb that glows and projects the moving images through his eyes.

The boy's mouth nothing more than a bed of hot coals and lava rock. His foot is inserted easily, but it's ejected immediately for fear of being burned by the spiteful words dancing on the surface of his tongue.

His back comes standard with knife wounds in tact, a chest riddled with shrapnel where bullets never seem to miss. He is an incomplete masterpiece, a boy with an irregular heartbeat powered by alkaline batteries and a sense of defeat - his brain function increased with every disappointment that he follows through with.

The boy is lonely. All he wants in this world is a companion, someone to complete the work the guys down in Texas began; someone to put all the screws in the right places and jump start his heart into beating again.

To Frank On His Birthday

My dad, Frank, is a simple man. Ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas and he might say, "socks" or "underwear" or "I don't need nothing." Every year I struggle to give him something with a little ounce of meaning, whether it be tickets to go watch professional wrestling together or something of the sort.

We've never been that expressive in our emotions toward one another. Hell, what father and son are? It's the way things - we go about our entire lives keeping things like love and pride and respect buried down deep, even though both parties recognize they are there and nothing needs to be said. But this year, on Frank's birthday, I figured it was about time for something to be said:

I sent my father an empty piece of paper, filled with all the things I can never bring myself to say. The invisible ink spelled out the love, respect and appreciation that I cannot communicate to him otherwise.

There is a deep gratitude that dwells in my chest and an abundance of pride I carry at the base of my spine in knowing this man is my father. He is a man I can only hope to become one-tenth of. And all of these things, they go unsaid, and can only be read on this empty piece of paper that I give.

I love you more than anything and I am so grateful and privileged to have a man such as yourself as my father.

She said, "Come here boy."

The lovely woman chases a glass of Smirnoff Vodka with 20 ounces of Diet Coke in a plastic bottle. She tried the wine, a cheap bottle of everyday red from the local grocery store, and handed the glass back to the man beside her.

"That stuff tastes like pure vinegar," she says. He laughs and playfully argues the point with her as she reaches for the Diet Coke. They talk for a moment longer, her sweet southern twang slurring with every sip of Smirnoff and artificially-sweetened soda she consumes. The space between them slowly disappears and soon their lips are touching.

He finds that she is, in fact, quite a good kisser as previously admitted. The kiss is a delicate dance of alternating from top lip to bottom lip, a rhythmic back-and-forth that creates a kind of magnetic bond where both parties push and pull against each other without breaking free.

The alcoholic beverages find their way to the little red coasters on the coffee table and his fingers find their way through her hair. His lips move below her right ear; finding that soft, supple spot between her neck and shoulder that he loves to put his lips against. Their hands move in a frenzy of motion, grasping and caressing one another on the Swedish-made couch the man put together himself.

His lips move to her chest, which is now flushed with red. His right hand slides in-between her denim-covered thighs as she digs nails into his shoulder. He feels warmth; an intense heat that makes the kiss deeper and the taste sweeter.

She takes the boy by the hand and leads him into the bedroom, as if she's done this before. He removes the tight black sweater from her curvy frame and throws it to the floor. Underneath is a red tank top that is removed before either of them can fully appreciate how good it looks on her.

The jeans that hug her hips are soon removed to reveal an appealing pair of silk panties, a lavender color with flowers in reds and deep passion purples. They spend the night together; sleep together even, but together they truly slept for an hour at most.

The next morning, he watched her slowly walk around the bedroom naked to collect her attire from the night before - one piece at a time. He wanted to reach for his glasses as to make out the perfection in the curved lines that made up her silhouette in the morning light, but he was too at peace to move a single muscle.

He walked her to the door at 8:14 a.m. and fell back into bed with a deadening thud, searching for the sleep he lost the night before, but instead only finding the smell of her hair on his sheets.

I-75 / Kentucky Bluegrass

On I-75, somewhere between Knoxville, TN and Lexington, KY, a tanker truck carryin' 7,500 gallons of Kentucky's finest whiskey has crashed and rolled across the four-lane interstate highway.

She pulls over the old beat-up car we borrowed from her brother-in-law and sit together on a grassy hill overlookin' the whole thing; liquor seepin' out onto the dirt and slidin' in between the cracks of the concrete.

Our backs to the sun, watchin' the cleanup crews haul away the twisted metal. Above our heads, the sky takes on shades of purple and red, smeared across the horizon like a preschooler's finger paintin'. She kisses me right on the lips and crawls into my lap and together we shed a few tears for the spilt liquor there on the Tennessee interstate.

And as the they sweep up the last of the shattered glass and broken plastic, we dream of ways to leave this goddamn strip of cement behind once and for all. But for now, we'll enjoy the sun while it lasts and make the drive back to a town we can't wait to leave for good.

Marla Sings The Blues

Broken and pulled away
The wings once connected
To your lovely spine
Covered in blood
On the linoleum floor

A can of dark turpentine
Took a brush and dipped it in
Applied a coat to the bones
Pushing through your skin.

But Marla Singer
Has to take the stage tonight
She's a lounge singer
At the Down n' Out Club

And her boyfriend,
He’s got needles sticking
In his arms, his silhouette behind
Her black-and-white shower curtain

But Marla's heart
Ain't so strong when
It's broken apart
In one million pieces

So we sit and cry
And collect the feathers
Smeared with blood
And with her help,
He pulls the needles from his arms.

All But The Things That Can't Be Torn

Kennedy in thigh-high nylons, white as snow. Her hair, cut with a straight razor, changes color like leaves from autumn to winter, but it always looks best in black.

She whistles playfully in-between sips of [yellow tail] Merlot, drawing anime school girls in the margins of her chemistry notebook. A set of Japanese characters decorate her spine, in a sequence of ink which goes black, red, black. Altogether cute, the middle character means love.

She says that I always ask with my eyes, and that I should just tell her instead. She hates the little lies that I let slip from my lips; lies that trickle into her ear and down to her eyes where she spills them out in perfect little tears.

Lies that paint some picturesque dream-come-true straight from the pages of a cheap Harlequin romance novel. Things that can never come true, promises that I can never keep - but Kennedy, she takes another sip and presses her lips against mine and tells me that a lie is all she needs to get by tonight.

The Space Inside My Chest

I built us a two-bedroom apartment inside the bottom left quadrant of my heart. Decorated with memories and snapshots hanging in black picture frames, I painted every wall a different shade of her favorite color.

In my heart, I kept her safe. In the second bedroom I kept myself and wrote secret works she'll never read, and I loved her still, though we slept together more like best friends and less and like lovers.

After a while, the paint began to chip. The glass cracked and spider-webbed over our black-and-white faces. When everything had run its course, she packed her things and hung a vacancy sign on our old bedroom door.

Pictures were burned, frames broken down to fuel the flames. A fresh coat of black and blue paint to bruise the walls inside my heart. I boxed up all the memories and a catalog full of times I smiled and laughed; the times I cried. I put them all in cardboard boxes marked, "fragile contents inside."

Bedroom number one soon became number two, and I turned it in to an over-sized storage closet for you and the broken things you left behind. No room to rent, no space vacant in this overpriced apartment inside my heart. There's just a collection of junk and things that never seem to last.

And come spring, I'll make an effort to clean up the mess she left in her wake, the beat-up shape I've refused to seek help for, and maybe someday soon there will be room for someone who doesn't remind me so much of her.

But until then, I'll spend the winter time sharing blankets with beautiful girls who spend the night in bedroom number one while your ghost lingers on the other side of the wall. As I kiss this week's latest set of lips, I'll think back on all the arguments we had in the hallways and corridors of my heart.

The Artist, The Writer and the Scuba Instructor

She paints a sleeve of tattoos on my right forearm as we take turns drinking from a bottle of cheap red wine she picked up from the drug store's grocery aisle. God, she's just so gorgeous, and her roommate is laughing and dancing around the kitchen in her bra and a pair of boxer shorts that were left in her room the night before.

And she mixes alcohol with a handful of pills she goes to the doctor to get and laughs her way through the hallucinations that lead her to press her wine-stained lips against my own. We kiss in-between needle pricks, ink dotting my flesh, filling my pores with pools of color.

Jessica claps along to "Sealion" in perfect harmony with a cigarette in her mouth. For dinner we smoke a chicken on the front porch in a barrel welded for such an occasion. And as this lovely redhead puts the finishing touches on the artwork that now decorates my skin, I can't help but feel completely alive in this hedonistic paradise where pleasure governs all of our decisions. The only thing real in the world is love and laughter and giving in to what feels good.

I pray to whatever God I don't believe in, that I share her bed again tonight and hold on to happiness for the few morning hours we spend together with our eyes closed. 'Cause there's nothing worse than spending the night on a couch where you've shared a kiss, while she's sleeping all alone in the back bedroom.

Unfinished or Ruined

I'm writing in my favorite green notebook, a fresh pen with black ink to decorate the ruled pages with words. I'm drinking a glass of red wine, filled to the brim. With my left hand I hold the phone, and into my left ear I hear her voice. She's drinking one of those sugary malt liquor beverages that you buy at the gas station. It gets the job done, I suppose.

She's painting. We are both killing brain cells and yet stimulating our creative minds in an effort to bring life into something otherwise dead at the bottom of a bunch of words and brush strokes. She sends me pictures of her current work and I am in complete awe. It's a self portrait, which instantly lends to the watercolor composition's beauty.

She is bare, completely naked on the paper. On the left side of her chest is an over-sized heart, blood red with blue detailing. I am instantly drawn to this, and I feel a deep connection with her. I must have this. If I can't have her, at least I can hang her on my wall and study the fine lines she has made; the gentle oval of her green eyes and the straight lines that curve to create the shape of her lovely red hair.

We talk for nearly two hours as I write down these very words in my notebook and pour another glass of wine. We have a meaningful discussion about relationships, love and sex, the three types of attraction. We seem to mutually agree on the fact that we are attracted to each other in two of the three ways: physically and spiritually. As for mentally, well, she's not in the business of being committed at the moment and truth be told, she's done an adequate job at scaring me off.

But she is beautiful and creative and full of life, regardless of who is lucky enough to spend it with her. She tells me her paintings end up one of two ways: unfinished or ruined. She'll add an extra brush stroke, an extra swatch of color, and suddenly this amazing concept has been reduced to an overcomplicated mess.

I beg her to put down the brush and step away from this little work of art, as I continue to jot down meaningless little run-on sentences in the notebook. Almost half a bottle of wine tonight, and who knows how many gas station drinks she's had - we're both a little drunk, a little vulnerable - a little happy to be alive at the moment. It's 4 a.m. and I have to be up in three-and-a-half hours, but this has been a wonderful night that has lifted my spirits and granted me with a brief jolt of inspiration.

She Knows When The Keg Kicks...

Come on bartender / Won't you be more tender
Give me two shots of whiskey / And a beer chaser
Love will be the death of me / Love is so fickle
Cause it starts with a flood / And it ends with a trickle

- Regina Spektor, "Bartender"

When will the time come / I could hear a sad love song
That doesn’t speak to me / Will a time come
I could sing a nice love song / Using the word “me”

- Feist, "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean"


It is Monday night at 8:30 p.m. and we are at Common House, watching Monday Night Football at the bar with our fellow friends and bar patrons. The restaurant and bar is doing good business tonight, with plenty of people taking up seats and stools around the bar.

I unzip my hooded sweatshirt and throw it on the back of the chair as I pull my seat up to the bar. Natalie greets me with her signature smile and big, bright eyes. Natalie is a short, petite girl who has to stretch across to wash off the bar with a wet cloth. She laughs as she struggles to reach, and actually ends up putting her knee up on a crate to push herself closer to the edge.

She throws out a couple of black paper napkins and starts pouring my drink before I can even order it. Tim is a different story, however, as he takes a moment to decide what overpriced beverage he'll be indulging tonight.

She's super cute tonight, dressed down in jeans and the standard brown Common House t-shirt. Her hair is pulled back into a long ponytail and I take more than a few moments to take in her smile and the way she laughs.

The three of us talk about her father, an Army brat who spent most of his time in Denver and very well may be the world's biggest John Elway fan. We talk about cinematographers and the dumbass soccer players in her Introduction to Media Production class who aren't pulling their weight.

When it's time to leave, Natalie brings the check and I take the opportunity to set things straight. "Hey so, I'm sorry about not leaving a tip." She is quick to dismiss it. "What? No, it's no big deal."

"To be honest, I was a little drunk and so preoccupied with leaving that little note on the back of the receipt that I forgot I even paid with cash, and so I got home and realized I didn't tip you - felt like an idiot."

"Nonsense. I was so flattered, I wasn't even worried about the tip. And if I didn't have a boyfriend, I definitely would have called you."

I smile. She smiles. I finally get a chance to leave the infamous tip, and on the back of the receipt I write another little note - well, more of a comment actually. "Here's the tip, plus interest, Natalie."

I'm more than a little interested.

Leslie's kiss, or was it Ashley's?

I've been standing at the bar for a few minutes now, waiting on Suzie to bring me change for the green slip of paper I handed her. I take a drink of the beverage I've only just been handed when a cute young college girl bumps into me.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" she frantically tells me with a slight slur on every "S." She squeezes in next to me, Common House is packed tonight and it's standing room only. "I totally didn't mean to grab your ass!" she assures me, and I laugh. "Oh, you're fine, it's no big deal - I get that a lot."

She smiles and reaches into her purse, producing a few wadded-up dollar bills. She drops the green paper balls on the bar and her eyes are attracted to two silver coins resting on a black paper napkin. She's wearing a tight white sweater, striped with thick bands of charcoal gray.

She asks me, "Are those your quarters?" "Nope, I think someone left them as a tip." She stares at me, as if trying to process what I've just said. She thoughtfully studies the quarters and asks once again. "Are you sure? Thought you might throw one in the jukebox," she says with a slight laugh. I take the opportunity to point out this bar doesn't have a jukebox, to which she replies with yet another drunken laugh.

Before she can ask me again, I turn the tables. "Why? Are you planning on taking them?" She gasps and touches her chest with her hand. "What? Me? No! Are you saying I'm a thief?" She pretends to be insulted but she can't stop smiling, and I take a moment to recognize how beautiful her teeth are - how perfect her smile is.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," I reply. "When you bumped into me and felt me up, I thought you might be trying to pull a pickpocket move on me." I smirk as her lips get closer to my ear, thank God for the atmosphere of a loud bar.

"Do I really look that untrustworthy?" I laugh out loud as she smiles, still pretending to be offended. "The pretty ones are always untrustworthy," I remind her. Right at this moment, Suzie grabs my attention and delivers the $3.50 she owes me.

I take one more look at the girl with dark brown hair and emerald green eyes and drop two more quarters on the same damp, black napkin. "There's two more for you, keep an eye on them for me."

I leave her at the bar and join my friends at a table in the corner for our final round of drinks.

20 minutes later...

The boys and girls are putting on their coats, all tabs paid and check cards delivered to their rightful owners. I see my opening and I slide in beside her at the bar, where I make it a point to interrupt some frat boy's lame attempt at hitting on her.

"Hey, where are my quarters?" She looks around and is shocked to find that the black napkin and the silver coins on top of it are missing. "You took them didn't you!?" I asked, another playful accusation between the two of us.

"No! Where'd they go? They were just here!" At this point, she takes my hand and gives it a shake. Her fingers are tipped with the same charcoal gray that wraps around her slender frame. Her handshake is soft and inviting, and I realize several minutes later we are still holding hands as we continue to converse.

I ask what her name is, and yet I am unable to remember it, though I've narrowed it down between Leslie and Ashley. It's one of the two, I'm sure of it. She asks for mine and then we exchange our points of origin.

"I'm from Michigan, can you tell?" she asks. "People down here say I have a crazy accent." I tell her the accent suits her well and holding hands soon turns to our arms wrapped around one another. My friends are on their way out the door, but her lips just found their way to my cheek.

"Well, I'm glad you got to meet me tonight," she says with a smile. "Yes, the privilege was all mine - but don't think wrapping your arms around me and giving me that sweet little kiss makes you any less untrustworthy."

She laughs and compliments the kiss on my right cheek with another one on the left. I tell her I have to go, that we've been here off-and-on all night and it's time to go to the next location. She asks where the next bar is and I tell her, "Sir Ed's, ever been there?" Of course Leslie (Ashley?) is drunk and probably can't comprehend the description and directions I'm giving her.

"We might be going there tonight," she says. "It's either there or Thomas Street Tavern." Having just left from Thomas Street before coming to Common House, I assure it's the last place she wants to be tonight. "There's nothing but frat boys and douchebags there, and none of them are as funny or interesting as me."

I simply let go of her hand and say my goodbyes. I could have asked for her number, I could have pressed my lips against hers, but I didn't. I couldn't even bother to commit her name to memory. She was attractive, but I've found in recent months that it's best to stay removed from these situations.

It's best I keep a safe distance from pretty girls at the bar whose inhibitions and decision-making abilities are as low-cut as the tops they wear around their necks.

Coming Clean: A Two-Part Strategy

Part I: My Favorite Memory

When I think of her, I see a blond-haired country girl who walks around the house in high heels. Her curvy frame is complimented by a tight white top and a black skirt her mother made for her; the print a never-ending skyline of colorful skyscrapers. She pours strawberry kiwi Country Time from a blue pitcher kept in the refrigerator and laughs with her entire body.

I think of her, sitting on a blue couch in her apartment on the light side of town, and I miss her. I keep wishing she was still around, but she isn’t. She changed with time, the way all of us change. None of us, it seems, have changed for the better.

Is it her fault? No, the ramifications of such things can never be traced back to one particular person or moment in time. However, decisions are made and in retrospect become mistakes, and don’t we all have a long list of things we wish could be undone?

Together we lie in pieces, broken and demolished after the respective four-car pileup that represents our lives. You would think by now we would have become better drivers; eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel – but distractions attract a more relaxed grip on the wheel and we are we left with? Busted windshield safety glass and the pain of fractured collarbones and broken hearts.

Maybe I was just in love with her for a week or two back in my senior year, but weakness disguised as complacency disguised as a high school sweetheart kept me from making myself her next big mistake.

I think that’s why I can no longer look her in the eye. I think that is why I have come to be so incredibly selfish and self-centered when it comes to our friendship. For whatever reason, I have become resentful of her – perhaps for making her own mistakes, which I know I have no control over. Perhaps I think, even way back then, there should have been something more to the two of us.

My next memory is of her in the passenger seat of my car. We went on a summer drive, just down the road to Blacksburg. With the windows down, we listened to music and stuck our arms out the windows, fingers spread – hands gliding in the wind.

She went with me to search for apartments, and the young man at Foxridge Apartments thought we were an item, a couple looking for a new place to stay. She had her big sunglasses resting on her head and her smile was so big and bright, it was almost blinding.

I thought for a moment that we just might be an item, if time would allow for such a thing. And so I stayed in Radford, and even though I had my own place, I spent enough time at hers to owe her a third of the rent.

I think a lot of people expected us to get together, but it never happened that way. She found herself back in the custody of a boy who never loved her the way she deserved – and I found myself back in the comfortable routine of being just a friend to every member of the opposite sex. She and I became like brother and sister, we felt as if we had each earned a spot in the other person’s life – a gray area where we could argue like siblings and impress upon each other our opinions. There was fondness, yet a confrontative resentment shared between the two of us.


Part II: Lessons Learned

You are correct in your evaluation of my emotional and mental state. I am full of anger and bitterness; increasingly jealous and resentful and I felt betrayed by everyone including myself.

This is not something remedied in a handful of autumn months, as I am sure you are aware. These are just the first few mile markers on a long road to recovery.

In the way you faltered and fell from the balance beam, it took some considerable time to find your footing again, and as I recall, didn’t a group of trusted friends rally to point out the mistakes you were making?

I’m sure we were obnoxious in our unrelenting giving of opinions you didn't ask for, but I also know it did not matter. I’m sure it had little to no effect, because I have now been on the other side of the door. I have been the one making the same mistakes, the same poor decisions, and your attempts to dissuade me from doing so have gone ignored and unappreciated.

I have been a terrible friend. I have become a disgusting, deteriorating amalgam of resentment, animosity and spite. I am not happy with myself, and your words have helped finally break whatever false pretense I had wrapped myself up in to believe otherwise.

These words I write bring tears to my eyes, as the changes and separations seem more like irreconcilable differences that cannot be mended. As much as I wish I could move the clock hands backward and un-draw the X’s from every calendar day between now and then, I cannot.

I am left with regrets that I have disguised as fate; accidents parading about as destiny, and mistakes for which there is no coincidence, only consequences that could not have happened any other way.

With love I write these words, with humility I spell out every mistake I’ve managed to make. I apologize for taking you, and the rest of my friends, for granted. I've found that I collect heartaches like a scientist catalogs moths and butterflies behind glass display cases. I am selfish and self-centered - and now I work toward freeing my heart of the heavy burden hate and bitterness places upon it.

I am sorry, Rachelle. I am sorry, Jessica. I'm sorry Sean and Tessica, Lauren and Craig, Kelly and anyone who reads this that I've made feel less-than or unappreciated. I realize it is of little consolation, but I mean these words - and I give them to you with love and nothing else, because I have nothing else in my heart to give.

At Your Funeral, After The Wake

I wouldn't hesitate to send a bouquet of black roses to your funeral, wilted and withered like the body tucked inside your wooden casket. I apologize in advance for not attending in person, for I fear I would begin to laugh at the site of such a small crowd mourning the passing of spilled milk's human equivalent.

Truth be told, you've been dead and buried in my mind for quite a long time now. I spent the summer digging myself a grave, only to watch you throw yourself in head-first. And so I took a shovel and made haste in covering your remains with freshly-moved earth. I planted a patch of tulips over your tomb lined with clay and said goodbye to the life you helped make.

Shortly thereafter I did away with all the friends made of threads that bound me to your memory; cut free from ties that tangled me up in knots and kept me from being free. And though you're dead and gone, your memory lingers on - haunting the dark, dusty corners of my mind in the middle of the night.

Broken hearts can be replaced, but the empty space behind my eyes is not filled so easily. I've forgotten the sound of your voice, the smell of your sheets, the sight of your smile in the early morning light... but I can't seem to shake the devastating stabs you left in my chest.

When I think of you, all I feel is the relentless inadequacy you left me with. I see you as an ugly, selfish, shallow shell of a person and I can't seem to remember one single moment of happiness spent with you. That's the worst part.

The Curves on the Cliffs

I've had a few drinks, and I'll have a few more before we're said and done. The backseat is filled with empty aluminum cans, save for this last silver bullet sittin' between my legs.

We were asked to leave an hour too soon, 'cause I said something to the bartender that he didn't much care for. But it's fine with me either way, honey, 'cause I'm taking you home tonight.

And I can see that nervous look in your big brown eyes, you're afraid I'll take the back roads home, and your fears are completely justified. But don't you worry about a thing, I'm more than drunk enough to drive you home tonight.

The little white lines become a spectacular zig-zag that stretches across the blacktop, and I pray the impact of this car smashing into the cliffs ejects your ghost from my passenger seat.

I'm counting on the broken bones and shattered teeth adding up to something greater than the pain you placed inside my chest.

The airbag bursts open like a parachute, wrapping around my skull like cellophane. It steals my breath as my chest crashes into the steering column, and the seat belt pulls tight across my twisted neck.

But when the ambulances came, they found me breathing amidst the bent steel and busted glass. They strapped me to the stretcher and hauled me away from the wreckage, and I'll never forget the last thing I saw before they slammed shut the doors.

You were left there in pieces, with no hope of being put back together. And I couldn't help but enjoy the sight of your heart slowly breaking before my eyes swelled shut and they turned out the lights.

They Day That Never Comes

I am ill with the feeling of disappointment. I am left uneasy by the lack of warmth around my heart, the absence of a body occupying the right side of the bed in the dark.

She's out there somewhere. This girl of mine, she lies awake at night with the idea that she'll find me when she least expects it. Her name can't be placed, and so my tongue clicks against my teeth like a camera snapping a picture of something that has yet to happen.

I often give this lovely girl names that stick for a week or two. Simple yet beautiful names like Samantha or Natalie, Diane or Kelly. In the end, it's just a case of mistaken identity and I'm left with an artist's vague interpretation of what perfect looks like.

And so I make love to these memories that never existed, still frames and photographs from nights that never happened. I remind myself that happiness is not something you can always hold, it comes and goes as it pleases and belongs to no particular set of hands.

Everything I've come to cherish, I let it slowly slip away. Everything I've ever loved will someday disappear and fade away until all that remains is a memory that feels more like a dream that never happened, much less came true.

Fly Girls in Legwarmers

From the far corner of the bar, "Back Door Man" by The Doors plays on an antique jukebox. It's Halloween night, and Common House Neighborhood Restaurant and Bar is completely dead. Big, fat drops of rain slap the sidewalk outside, and only the crew and a few lone patrons drink tonight.

Drew wears a cowboy hat, blue jeans, boots and a red button-up shirt tucked in. He has a fake brown goatee, and for the life of me I am unsure of who he is dressed as. At first I ponder over the possibility of Yosemite Sam or even Toby Keith, but I give up shortly thereafter.

The Blues Brothers, a Nun and an '80s rock star take up residence at the bar - sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? "Goddamn, it's The Blues Brothers," says Drew in-between sips of his Pabst Blue Ribbon. He comes over to the table and chats for a while, and I take the opportunity to explain the incident last week with Natalie and my failure at tipping her.

"Oh, so that was you?" he replies. He goes on to tell me how much of a cool girl Natalie is, something I've already learned in the few hours I've spent with her. As I remove Joliet Jake's black hat and sunglasses, he explains that this lovely girl (who reminds me of Tina Fey) is currently living with her boyfriend.

I had already assumed she was seeing someone - a cute, genuinely fun and awesome girl like that is snatched up easily (and then often neglected by the guy who doesn't realize what he has). From Drew's drunken musings, it would seem that it was a bad situation - that she wasn't happy. It's a tricky situation, one that is not easily remedied. At this point, I can only hope for a continued friendship with the possibility of more to come. 

The group migrates to the newly-installed dart board, where we take up teams and begin blindly throwing darts with all the skill of a chimpanzee trying to pilot a rocket ship. Behind us, a familiar voice yells out, "Hey!" and I realize it's Natalie.

Natalie is dressed as a Fly Girl from In Living Color. She is wearing purple leg warmers, hot pink stockings, turquoise gym shorts and a yellow sweater, with the neck ripped. The sweater hangs over her shoulder to reveal her bra - a sight that my eyes constantly gravitate back toward. She wears a headband, big hoop earrings and lots of '80s glam-rock makeup. She's beautiful, glowing even.

Her friend, whose name escapes me, is dressed as Jim from The Office - though an incredibly clever costume as she is dressed as Jim on Halloween, when he went as a three-hole punch. This girl from Kansas is extremely cute as well, and actually she reminds me of Jim's former girlfriend, Karen Filippelli.

With this motley crew comes Earl, from My Name is Earl. He is drunk, walking around with a list and a pint of cheap beer. He tells us of his exploits, feeling up girls at The Philosopher's Stone; the benefits of being Earl. We all engage in conversation, speaking at length about weird topics like Joan Jett, Kathy Griffin, Brunch and the magical nature of Kristen Stewart and our friend Holly's uncanny resemblance to her.

I make no mention to Natalie of the tip or the phone number that was so foolishly given. Monday night is approaching and, as tradition dictates, Tim and I will be at Common House for Monday Night Football and buffalo wings. I anticipate seeing her again, and perhaps getting a peek behind what exactly is going on in her life - a glimpse of hope or a reaffirming slap in the face, either or.

You're No Damn Good For Me

After weeks of contemplating the possible consequences of this decision, my mind is finally made. I can no longer go about pretending that you are my friend, that you are looking out for my best interests. I am separating myself from a tight-knit group of friends I used to feel a part of.

I suppose in the aftermath of everything that happened this past summer, there had to be a few casualties. When it happened, you listened to me - you sympathized and empathized and told me I was better off. I realize you were telling her the exact same things, because that's your job as a mutual best friend.

She demanded your friendship. She demanded that I distance myself from you and the others, because I had my own friends and she had nothing or no one else. I guess in the end, just like everything else, she got what she wanted. No one came to my defense. Not one single person stood up for me and confronted her, they were too busy consoling both of us behind each other's backs. It's bullshit, really.

And as usual, this selfish, petty wretch of a person got what she wanted with no consequences - completely unaffected by the entire situation, whereas I was left devastated. And for a while we all went on like it would be fine, we made jokes - she and I shared the group of friends as if we were a divorced couple with visitation rights.

But it was all in vain; completely pointless to even entertain the idea. You have always been a person who claims to be open-minded, when in reality you judge everyone with a different viewpoint than yourself. You have never had my interests at heart, instead you constantly attempted to make me feel inferior in my ability to live my own life - as if I needed your divine wisdom to survive.

So, I say farewell to the fair-weather friends of yesteryear. I'm tired of the judgment, I'm tired of the shit-eating grins filled with false words and empty meanings. I understand it was a difficult predicament being stuck in, constantly having to bounce back and forth between her and myself, so I'm alleviating you of that hardship.

I am walking away from this, and my heart feels a million times lighter. I just think about all the times you and others agreed with me - the times we talked about her behind her back about how selfish and petty and downright mean she could be... and then I can only imagine what all of you said about me - the jokes you made at my expense.

It makes me sick, honestly. I don't need that in my life. There was a time when I would tolerate it, but that time has passed.

The Girl From Greensboro

Natalie's fingernails are a dark, pastel pink. She is a bartender at Common House, a neighborhood restaurant and bar on the corner of Central Avenue and Hawthorne Lane. To paint a picture of Natalie's beauty requires many fine strokes. In the few hours I spend in her company, I am delighted by her infectious laugh and put at ease by her smile.

Natalie is a Creative Writing student at Queens University of Charlotte. We talk at length about her poetry; esoteric musings. She just finished writing a piece of flash fiction, which she found challenging. A friend at my table spoke up and mentioned that it's my specialty. If I have an area of interest or expertise, I suppose that would be the name for it. Maybe prose poetry.

The bar is relatively empty on a Monday night. A few patrons have gathered to watch football and eat buffalo wings, but Natalie finds herself coming by our table often, joining in on the conversation. She is a short girl with a lovely shape; square-frame glasses and pulled-back ponytail seem to go hand-in-hand with her bubbly, quirky personality.

Natalie is an adorable girl from Greensboro who made her way to Charlotte after a detour in Boone. She went to App State and found herself considering Journalism as a major, where I found the opportunity to chime in with my own experiences (or lack thereof, rather).

I order a Pabst Blue Ribbon, because I'm a gentleman, and she laughs. I remind her it was America's best beer in 1893 and is the choice of gentlemen and scholars everywhere. She laughs at this, and she is simply beautiful. As the night goes on, and more Blue Ribbons are tied on, our conversations become less intellectual and more absurd.

She tells me about a friend with a Transformers tramp-stamp, that is, a tattoo of Optimus Prime on the lower back - bordered by flames. We talk about America's Next Top Model and how we wish Tyra Banks would burn a slow, painful death while smiling with her eyes.

When the football game has finished and the last beer has been emptied of its contents, Natalie brings the checks. I pay with cash, which is something I seldom do (because I typically do not have said currency). Tim pays with his debit card and thus, Natalie leaves an ink pen for him to sign his signature with.

Without thinking I remove the change from the black wallet and quickly grab the ink pen from Tim's hands as he finishes signing his money over to the Common House. In this moment I am distracted by how sweet and special this girl seems, and I take a minute to write a little note on the back of the receipt.

"So, because I'm a gentlemen," I begin in black ink. I leave my name and telephone number and close the black wallet with the ink pen inside. It's not until I get home that I realize I didn't tip her. Yes, I was so caught up with trying to leave my phone number for this beautiful bartender that I didn't even think to leave a tip for the excellent service and wonderful night in her company.

Then again, it could be a good story. It could be a great first line. I like to think she'll call and ask me where her tip is, and from there I can suggest going out for coffee or something of the sort to pay her back. Worst comes to worst, I'll see her next Monday and I'll leave my telephone number once more, with her well-deserved tip plus interest.

Someone Like You

I certainly could use someone like you. In fact, I think about it quite often. I think of using you for nothing more than a pair of legs and a set of breasts underneath my bedsheets. I dream of taking advantage of someone like you, just so I can know how it feels to be on the opposite side of a long goodbye.

I dream of drunken kisses, little white lies that imply something more than harmless fun in the dark. I dream of being the one who is desired, the one who is chased - the one who has to sit her down and tell her that I meant nothing by it. I dream of breaking a heart before it's even been handed to me.

I want to take something from you, I want to use you up and leave you feeling empty and slightly broken inside. I want to taste your lips and put my hands on you, and I want to wake in the morning and see the sun shining on your skin. I want you to fall head-over-heels in love with me, and then I want to break you.

But in the end, we both know that won't be the case. The only one left broken will be me. I will be the boy who chases the pretty girls. I'll be the boy who is always the second best thing, the one that girls latch on to in their moment of need and use to quell their loneliness. I'm the one who is destined to be cursed by the poison of a gorgeous set of lips - the one who falls in love at the drop of a pair of polka-dot panties.

Lost Creek's Very Own All Hallows' Eve

Lost Creek, Texas. October 31st, 1978.

Werewolves, Ghouls, Ghosts and Demons of every variety roam the streets tonight. They've all descended on the usually sleepy town of Lost Creek, Texas, where Halloween and all of the holiday's strangest traditions are taken very seriously.

6:32 p.m. Central Time. A jack-o'-lantern sits on the steps of Old Man Stinson's house. Triangles for eyes, a grin carved with surgical precision. Candlelight light oozes between the jagged teeth and fills the pumpkin’s eyes with fire.

Four children approach the steps, giggling under their latex masks and homemade costumes. Kitty Jacobs is a wicked old witch, caked green makeup with a crooked nose covering her own. Johnny Thompson is a rather pathetic looking mummy, wrapped in strips of sackcloth held together by safety pins.

Bobby Rickson knocks on the door with his hook hand. He’s a pirate, a rather elaborate costume complete with wooden sword, black eye patch and a fake parrot on his shoulder. The door cracks open ever so slightly, and light from the kitchen spills out onto the colorful costumes.

Susan Stranger, who all the kids at school called “Suzie the Strangest,” is the first to yell, “Trick ‘r Treat!” out from under the plain white sheet draped over her head. Susan tugs at the sheet to adjust the eyeholes so she can better see her candy bag.

The door opens a little more and a metal walker is pushed into view. A set of tennis balls have been slit and slid over the back two legs. The result is an odd screech, followed by a dull thumping noise – like dragging a dead body over hardwood floor.

Old Man Stinson greets the children with a warm smile and reaches into the big black cauldron of candy beside the door. Unlike most elderly folks on the block, Earl Stinson is a staunch proponent of trick-or-treating. You’ll never leave his doorstep disappointed.

No toothbrushes or raisins or Necco wafers are given to the kids on his watch. Earl’s giving out the name brand stuff, and not any of that fun-size junk either. We’re talking King Size Reese’s cups, here. We’re talking pumpkin-shaped chocolate pops, giant Pixie Sticks and marshmallow ghosts; a young child’s sugar-laden fantasyland.

The kids are quick to lift their treat bags and receive Earl Stinson’s holy communion of All Hallows’ Eve. The old man compliments each ghoul and goblin on their costumes and drops a gracious fistful of candy into their bags. The children bubble with excitement and hop down the steps toward the next well-lit, overly decorated house on Ford Street.

Earlier…

4:13 p.m. Central Time. On Earl Stinson’s kitchen table sits an amateur chemistry set. It’s made of cheap plastic and glass, the kind of kit you might see on the back page of an Archie comic book and send away for.

A metal tin labeled, “Potassium Cyanide,” can be seen on the kitchen counter. The table is covered in glass vials and dropper-bottles of colorless liquids. Earl Stinson’s hands work with the composed meticulousness of a watchmaker.

Using an Xacto Knife, he makes a small incision in the candy wrapper. Next he carefully removes the Milky Way bar from its plastic prison and cuts down the length of the chocolate as if he was performing a Cesarean section.

Old Man Stinson slowly inserts a razor blade into the delicious mixture of chocolate, caramel and nougat using a pair of tweezers. Before you know it, he has successfully implanted the cold metal and sealed the chocolate bar back into the wrapper, as if it had never been touched.

Next he uses a syringe to inject a marshmallow ghost with heroin, a guaranteed surprise for the little tyke unfortunate enough to bite into this haunted treat. Earl’s favorite concoction, however, is the introduction of crystallized Potassium Cyanide into Pixie Stix. He marvels at how similar it is to sugar and how it is completely unrecognizable unless chemically tested.

Earl looks at the clock on his kitchen wall, a black cat with a swinging tail, and realizes it will be dark soon. He rushes to finish preparing his goodies for tonight’s festivities and works diligently with a smile on his old, cracked face.

Roslyn Rides The Lightning

Just around the corner there's a heartbreak waiting to happen. It stands 5'7" with pretty blue eyes and blond hair pulled back into pigtails. She wears a Metallica t-shirt, the cover art for Ride the Lightning screen printed on a black cotton/polyester blend. She wears a purple mini skirt and white knee socks, like a heavy metal catholic school girl.

She looks like your typical barely legal Hot Topic trailer trash, trying so hard to stand out, only to blend in with the rest of her attention-deficient generation. She's a student at the local community college, taking long drags of a Virginia Slim with black-tipped fingernails. Her makeup looks as if it was applied by a porn star, her hair streaked with hot pink and neon blue.

I ask her for a light and we strike up a conversation in line, I spend the entire time staring at her thighs. She tells me she has 15 piercings, but I only count 12. She tells me the other three are hidden under black lace undergarments as she licks her lips and reveals piercing number seven.

I want to take this girl home tonight. I want to use her. I want her for the story; the experience. I want her for no other reason than having her for one night, or maybe two. I am no longer a boy who longs to fall in love. Instead, I am looking for all the life I missed out on being miserable with her.

She's pure sex wrapped up in a Metallica t-shirt, and I'm taking her home tonight. In the car she removes the rubber bands that hold her pigtails in place. I put on some old punk rock record and she head bangs to the sound of guitar and drums. She's had a couple of drinks, and I'm about to have a couple more. We're going to share a bed tonight, and I'm going to discover the remaining piercings she's yet to reveal.

Death Rides Through the Badlands

Death cuts a path through the Badlands on a horse whose name cannot be uttered by human tongue. He rides to us all, black hooded cloak ripping in the desert wind, the hooves of his pale steed floating over the dirt and gravel. No dust clouds. Not one single grain of desert sand unsettled.

No shadows are cast, the moon does not shine on nights when Death rides through the wilderness plains. All that can be seen in the pitch-black night is the white-hot glow of his eyes and the ancient grime etched upon his ancient teeth.

His horse never tires, its gallop fast and resolute. Death rides on a pale horse, and he comes to us all. Past the abandoned weigh stations and stalled tractor-trailers, Death does not stop to take in the sights of deserted four-lane interstate highways, nor the deer that graze freely in the tall grass.

When Death arrives at his destination, he slowly climbs off his saddle made of prehistoric bone and moves effortlessly to the foot of your bed. He stands there for six hours or more, without so much as flinching. And when you stir in the middle of the night, it is Death running his greasy finger down your spine, begging your soul to unravel from the mortal coil it clings to.

As eerily graceful as a spider crawling about its web, Death cracks a skeleton grin and welcomes you to his cold, rigid embrace. And when he holds you, you feel the worms and centipedes under his cloak, crawling in and out of the slots in his decaying ribcage. Death whispers in your ear, and in that moment you cease to be.

Death took your mother and then your father, and while the doctors told you they felt little to no pain, rest assured Death had his way with them. He empties the bodies of the living and leaves them hollow, the light leaves their eyes and their blood turns black. He lets all the good parts become memories left for the living, and the rest he takes back to Hell on horseback.

Death knows little of God, and less of compassion. Death only knows of time and when yours has come to an end. And when he whispers in your ear, he does not answer your questions. He does not give an explanation or a reason. Death only whispers the name of the pale horse on which he rides, a name you can never say.

But sometimes, Death drives a white Cadillac with black leather seats and tuck-and-roll upholstery…

Like a Southbound Train

In the midst of Tuesday evening's typical confusion, she pushes past me and says, "Come on, baby." I follow behind her without a word, taking in the sights of such a pleasant view. Tight denim hugs her curves, she is a dangerous woman.

In the elevator, among our peers, I say something that creates a burst of laughter and she lightly pushes me on the shoulder. I smile and she laughs as the doors open on the lower level. We walk across the cracked asphalt of the adjoining parking lot to grab a bite to eat.

We exchange small talk: what we did last night; how things are going today. I wonder if she remembers the kiss I left on her right shoulder, right at the base of her neck. Perhaps she feels the same as me and chalks it up to a half-drunken memory.

She is not a girl you fall in love with. She is a girl you lust after. She speaks with a sweet country twang that brings me to my knees. Her skin is pale and dotted with freckles, her hair the perfect shade of red. She has a tattoo on the small of her back, which naturally attracts my eyes to the sway of her hips when she walks.

She's a down-home kind of girl, the kind without a family to keep her in line. The kind you don't bring home to mama. She's as pretty as a bouquet of dogwood flowers in the summer sun, but she's a dangerous country girl who ain't the kind to fall in love.

Girl Next Door / Fuck You

She looks like the girl next door in a John Hughes film. She is a plain Jane with big green eyes and the most sarcastic of smiles. She shakes like a neurotic, caffeine-addled little child. She is a walking attention disorder, but she is beautiful.

She has me thinking thoughts I shouldn't be. She has me questioning whether or not this is a good idea, and while all signs point to no I have to believe we can survive by keeping it casual. I'm not sure where we go from here, but a drunken kiss sounds like a solid start. Maybe just the two of us, alone in the dark, following the nerve-endings that let us feel each other's touch.

We could keep it a dirty little secret, a secret only whispered underneath my bedsheets. And maybe this is out of spite, maybe it's an excuse to put another body between hers and mine. And is that fair? I suppose it's not - but goddammit I'm tired of doing what's safe and what's always right. I would do anything to forget your name. I would sell my soul to gain my sanity. I would kiss her on the lips if only to forget your face.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For 24 years straight I've thought too much about things I have no control over. I've dedicated hours every day to dreaming up scenarios that simply cannot be. I've spent nights in bed wide-eyed and awake, worrying over the microscopic, meaningless moments of my day.

But today I felt all of my worries fall away, and the fear that keeps my heart prisoner began to subside. I realized it had to be one or the other; confidence in myself or trust in you. And all I lost was you, but I gained everything instead.

Now I'm free to live life on my own terms and when I'm gone, whether it's Austin, Texas or Cupertino, California, I'll look back down the dusty dirt road and laugh at all the effort I put into loving you.

I've been handed cell phone numbers, jotted down on notebook paper. I've got offers to meet pretty, young things for drinks at the bar. I've been invited on weekend escapes to cities in different states. I've been asked out on dates by girls I haven't seen in ages - girls that know what they've been missing.

And so there's no point in letting the lingering memories of you control my life. And I'm sure it won't be completely out of spite, his lips posed so close to your cheek. I wish I would have never wasted my time on you. I regret every breath I allowed you to take.

Derby Girl

It's 8:37 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. There is a knock at the door, a playful rap I've been expecting for roughly seven minutes now. I answer the door and Sheena dashes past me with a brilliant white smile. On her feet, a whirl of black and electric pink, and she skates through the foyer and into the kitchen.

She unstraps the hot pink helmet and tosses it on the coat rack. I ask her about practice, and she tells me it was "bitchin'." She hops up on the kitchen counter and I help her with her skates. We kiss as I unlace the pink shoelaces and slide them off her feet. I look into her eyes. She believes there's no such thing as too much black eyeliner, and it never hurts to add an extra application of LashBlast. I sit the skates in the foyer as she runs past me into the bedroom.

It's 8:45 p.m. Eastern Standard time. I open the cracked bedroom door and catch a glimpse of her changing. The tattoos that cover her arms represent a collection of pretty things; stars and half moons; autumn-colored leaves falling from a twisted old tree; the Muppet Babies.

She takes the piercings out of her ears and places them on the dresser. Next she carefully removes the skull-shaped stud in her nose, and finally the neon green ring in her right eyebrow. As she undresses, my eyes concentrate on the black-and-blue bruises that decorate her thighs like merit badges. She calls them her "war medals," and she displays them proudly - constantly inviting friends to view a case of rink rash or her latest scar.

She wears boy-cut underwear, striped like candy canes. With her back to me, she removes her top and the sports bra under it. At this moment, she looks over her shoulder and catches me stealing a glimpse. She laughs, slightly blushing, and tells me to come in.

It is 8:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. She turns around and runs her black-tipped fingers through dark purple hair. She smiles and presses her body against mine before pushing away and walking to the mirror. She grabs my old Ramones t-shirt and throws it over her head.

She walks past, making a motion with her finger to follow. She steps out into the living room, bruises peeking out from under the bottom of my tee. She drops the needle on a piece of a vinyl she recently acquired from a local flea market. She pulls me close and kisses my lips, then my cheek, making her way to my ear lobe. She bites it gently and growls playfully.

In the background, the raucous blast of punk rock swells and engulfs us. Three chords played in steady succession, the sound of sticks breaking against drums. She jumps up and down, doing a punk rock version of the twist and shout. I take her by the hands, still stamped from a night at The Warehouse last week, and we dance across the carpet.

It is 9:03 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and I am in love with a roller derby goddess. Sheena is a punk rocker, a fistful of mayhem in a pretty package with green-and-white striped knee socks that hypnotize me. She's a badass bitch with venom in her veins and acid on her tongue, but she loves me with all of her heart - the only part of her that isn't bruised.

She Kissed Me At The Festival

At least once a week she browses the electronic aisles of Craigslist, hoping to find a description of herself in the Missed Connections section. It makes her feel all warm and fuzzy, just thinking she caught someone's eye long enough to leave a lasting impression.

Her favorite food is soup and a sandwich, preferably grilled cheese. If she makes this for you, it's because she loves you. This beautiful girl can think of few things cuter than sharing a bowl of tomato soup, eagerly dipping her half of a grilled cheese into it. She likes the way it warms her body (and soul) when she's curled up under an old blanket with you, watching a movie you've seen a hundred times.

She dreams of being a regular somewhere. She talks at great length about walking into a place and saying, "Hey Joe! I'll have my regular," and get her regular order and small talk with the locals. She wants to own a record store, like the one in High Fidelity, or maybe a quaint little coffee shop / bookstore. She wants to sell good books and music to friends and make amazing Italian Cream Sodas and sandwiches.

She's so cute, such a sweet little thing. Her conscience is abnormally strong, she can barely tell a lie. In fact, she can't remember the last time she did. She can't be mean or short with people without hating herself for the next month.

She is a lover of words, she should write a book. She wants to be a writer, but it seems impossible for her to finish a novel. Her pretty little head is full of great thoughts, but she struggles with putting them on a notebook page. She is a lover of words, and a well-versed lover she is.

All she wants out of life is a little house with enough room for her cats and a dog, a garden in the backyard where she can weed in her skirts, a front porch swing where she can read and drink tea in the lazy afternoon sun, and a boy who wants nothing more than to share his life with her.

It doesn't take much to make her happy, hold her hand and she's smiling for the rest of the day. buy her a hot dog or just text her because you were thinking about her and she's quick to love. Run your fingers through her hair, gently kiss her cheek and she whispers three sweet little words in your ear.

The Bartender's Friend

And now the bartender, he's from Staunton, Virginia. In his Carolina blue polo shirt, he throws down a couple of cardboard coasters and serves us drinks. I'm drinking beer, but she's taking this serious. Mixed drinks and long drags from menthol cigarettes, she drinks fast because she can't stand the wait. The bartender knows us by name, but for the life of me I can't remember his, which means he did a damn good job I guess.

The man sitting on the stool beside me, he's married with three kids. Through the course of conversation we discover he's a bartender too. He's got three little girls and a wife that means well, his hair is almost entirely gray. He breaks his last ten dollar bill and smokes the last in the pack to escape the Lifetime Original Movie that is his life. "This is where the bartenders come to drink," he says.

And when she's had a little too much to drink, the words she says make me red in the face. She's a real wild child, two drinks short of climbing up on the bar - like she did last time. And this isn't just another honest mistake, this is the most intentional of indecent intentions. We both know what we're doing.

Snippets From A Green Notebook

I've paced about the apartment more than a few times, wishing I could find a suitable replacement for this early mornin' heartache that sits on my chest and clings to my bones. Open the medicine cabinet and reach for my prescription but the tiny script on the plastic pill bottle, it always spells out your name. So I shake two out from the brown plastic and swallow down your memory with a shot of whiskey.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drove 163 miles
For the chance to see her smile,
But I left Sunday in the rain,
Empty-handed and disappointed.

Her lips, they were busy
Letting down another member
Of the recently brokenhearted
And I'm just the next in line

But thank God my heart
Is already broken, and
She won't be the first one
To fool me into falling in love

She's just a another
Perfect girl who isn't looking
For anything more than a boy
To be her friend, and nothing more

She's not inclined
To waste time being romantic
But kissing is fun, and so she does
And we share a bed together

But in the end, she
Meant what she said
And I'm the only one
Who got burned

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

She makes paper airplanes
And watches as they soar
From the hangar bay
Of her 32nd floor window

Airplanes constructed
From pieces of paper
With words written all over
She sends my love spiraling

And she whistles
As tiny paper helicopters glide
In-between skyscrapers
And crash into the cement.

I stand down below, hands up
In the middle of the city street
Attempting to salvage what little
Love there is left

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a girl who has spent her entire life down in the Carolinas. She has hair the color of strawberries, and her toenails are painted a pretty pink. Out-of-towners ask her to pronounce certain words just to hear the way that twang rolls off her tongue. She's a country girl with curves, a pair of painted-on blue jeans and a tight white shirt bustin' at the seams.

She wears thick, black eyeliner and smokes Newport cigarettes. She's trouble, plain and simple. I watch her drink White Russian after White Russian after Dirty Martini as we talk about her living situation. Small talk is exchanged, the tab is paid, and next thing you know she's coming home with me.

I run my fingers through her thick red hair, I give her a few well-placed kisses on the neck - but it's 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night and we're already drunk. We smoke a cigarette, flick the ashes in a coffee cup, and after we sober up - I drive her back home.

She's trouble, and I know it's coming my way again soon. She's the kind of trouble you want to find yourself getting into on occasion.

Before The Sun Was Shining

Woke up this mornin'
Before the Sun was shinin'
Found you right where I left you
Sleepin' so soundly

Made a pot of coffee
Sat at the kitchen table
Passed the time, read the paper
Waited for the Sun to rise

Pretty eyelashes stirred
As the Sun shined through
And I woke my darlin'
With a whisper in her ear

In the mornin'
With red ponytail pulled back
She flashed a smile
And offered a kiss to my lips

And my heart was so full
For this girl, singin' songs
And jumping on the bed
In her underwear

Wreck on the Ripplemead Bridge

There was a wreck this mornin' on the Ripplemead bridge. Tire blew out, sent a car straight into the barrier. The concrete cracked and Detroit steel bent into acute angles. Windshield shattered at the impact and that front left wheel was covered in strips of rubber 'round its hub.

That exposed axle and wheel hung over the edge of that bridge, and the driver inside was swallowed by panic and an airbag. There was screaming and the sound of The Beatles blaring over the radio. If I'm not mistaken, the song was "Here Comes The Sun."

And the driver only suffered a few scratches and thank God the young girl ridin' shotgun dodged the bullet. She was his life, that girl, and without her he was as good as dead. On that bridge, one hundred feet above New River, he cried until his tear ducts bled, because he had almost lost his life.

Carolina State Border

There’s a girl in Richmond with big green eyes
Another in Nashville, she’s got a pretty smile
I met a gorgeous siren with hair like fire,
Down by the pond, out in the darkness

There’s a girl with porcelain skin,
She’s got a freckle in her eye
Body covered in beauty marks
In Queen City, Carolina

She loves to sing, “Down
In Mexico,” in sweet Tennessee
I said she was perfect
And she made me a liar

And that woman, she had my heart,
Stretched it out and she sent it down
That old backwards river, back home
To Pearisburg, Virginia

And here I am, just a boy misled
By a beautiful girl’s drunken kiss
A boy whose lips are poisoned with
The taste of Carolina.

An Impossible Parade / Two of Us

Show me your life
A parade of streetlights
And cracks in the sidewalk cement
Where your friends all fell through

Take me there, to that place
Yes, you've been there before
Show me the broken heart
And the wall you built to seal it off

I'll take it down
Brick by brick
Until I find a crack
Where my heart can fit

And you say you're far
From graceful as you stumble
Over invisible cords
But I'm so clumsy, I keep falling
Head over heels in love

And the drinks make
Us slur our words, but
Your name sounds so perfect
On the tip of my tongue

------------------------------------------------

Two of us, writing letters
From far off destinations
I'm headed south, and you
You're just north of here

Two of us, sending care
In brown paper packages
Filled with things to hold
In the absence of each other

Two of us, pulled apart
Are you aware of the shape I'm in?
I'm missing you, every bit
Of you, it feels like home

And in January, I'm sure
She'll be ready
To follow the heart in her chest
And never mind the rest

Trick 'r Treat

Trick 'r Treat
Respect the traditions. Respect the dead.



Bonfires burning bright / Pumpkin faces in the night / Candy apples and razor blades / Little dead are soon in graves / I remember Halloween. - "Halloween" by The Misfits

In writer/director Michael Dougherty's film, Trick 'r Treat, Werewolves, Zombies and Demons of every variety are on the loose. They've all descended on the normally sleepy town of Warren Valley, Ohio where Halloween and all of the holiday's strange traditions are taken very seriously.

Halloween is about respecting the dead. It's the one night the dead and all matters of the macabre roam free and pay us a visit. The traditions: carving jack-o-lanterns , putting on costumes, handing out treats - they were started to protect us but nowadays, few people observe the customs and even less respect them.

In the vein of George A. Romero's Creepshow, Trick 'r Treat is a collection of short stories woven seamlessly: a suburban couple learns the dangers of blowing out a Jack-o-Lantern before midnight; four women cross paths with a costumed stalker at the town parade; a group of pranksters goes too far and discovers the horrifying truth behind an urban legend; and a cantankerous old hermit is visited by a most peculiar trick-or-treater.

Trick 'r Treat is an instant cult classic that ghouls and goblins will watch every Halloween. It is a new tradition to be respected and upheld by the holiday's most die-hard followers. Dougherty's writing and direction is brilliant, and the film's pacing and editing is suspenseful and clever. This is the essential Halloween film. The atmosphere and authenticity of the world Dougherty has created is timeless and downright fun.

"Impressive. Most impressive."

Just Friends

And she says, "Adam, there is no league," but I insist she's out of mine. I hold her in my arms, my fingers brush against her cheek. Her lips press against mine and it's safe to assume the alcoholic drinks have thrown us into fast-forward. We are living in the moment, following our speeding hearts to wherever they might take us.

I'm leaving tomorrow, to a city far enough away to make her second-guess the way she feels. The combination of root beer and rum, bottle after bottle of honey wheat ale, has made our lips move too fast. There is beauty in the possibility of this becoming a reality, but we are both brokenhearted and the timing is off.

So I clap my hands and say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," while doing my best not to stare. I make an attempt to stay tight-lipped for fear of making things worse. She is a wonderful girl, and to be her friend is more than enough. She is exactly the kind of girl every guy wishes to be around. She's fun, unique, conversational and extremely creative.

This is the part where we both work on being friends, instead of haphazard lovers on an alcoholic whim. I want to compare lists of all the films that we've missed and sit in the dark together. I want to listen to her favorite songs and watch her dance across the kitchen floor while singing along to the words. I want to know her.

A User's Guide

In the living room, behind the couch, she shows me cluttered bookshelves filled with a mix of fiction and college text. "Most of those aren't mine," she says. "Except these." She points to The Cosmo Kama Sutra and Sex: A User's Guide.

The dining room table is covered with assorted pieces of notable interest. Blue snorkel, a black motorcycle helmet amidst the salt and pepper shakers. I find a set of handcuffs and she's quick to say, "I forgot to put those up." She comes back with a couple of ocarinas and encourages me to play a tune. I struggle, yet she effortlessly performs "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with the greatest of ease.

Lying on the floor is a watercolor painting I am taken aback by. I find instant inspiration in the image she has created:

Lime green paint slowly drips
Down the wall behind
A woman's face, so white
And pallid like vampire flesh.
A wasp crawls over her teeth
And tastes the sweetness
Of her tongue.

She opens the screen door and guides me to the front porch where we sit in bean bag chairs and smoke cigarettes in the rain. During the course of common conversation, the truth is revealed. She crawls into my lap and delivers a passionate kiss to my lips.

And then comes the inevitable. She is unavailable. There are 163.28 miles that separate us. There are numerous factors to consider, and she compiles a list of one thousand reasons why I shouldn't be interested - but I am.

I would trace every white line painted on interstate highway just to find my way back to her eyes, her lips, her fingertips. I would ride telephone wires and climb cell phone towers just to hear her voice on the other side.

We stand on the edge of something beautiful, but she is unavailable. We moved at the speed of sound to find ourselves at this point, wishing time was on our side. I don't regret that night, as it was wonderful - and I pray she doesn't consider it a mistake, because it would be my favorite mistake of millions made.

The Front Porch Talk

With a little bag of cocaine, she dances about the kitchen floor. The silhouette of her lips, lit from behind by kitchen light, sings every line of Regina Spektor's "Hotel Song." In a glass she mixes root beer and rum, off-brand and bottom shelf but it gets the job done. From the kitchen we move to her living room and take a seat on an olive green couch she got at a reasonable price. With her back against my chest, I kiss gently at her neck and wrap my arms around her.

She doesn't know how to take compliments. She hates it when I say, "You're beautiful," and covers her face with hands, hiding those big green eyes from sight. Her hair, the deepest color of red, as if stained by expensive red wine. She shows me her sketches, wonderful little works of art that I am instantly impressed by.

We smoke cigarettes on the front porch, freezing to death in the cold; sharing secrets and reasons why this shouldn't be happening. She takes me down to the pond and we stand on the dock, staring off into the distance at the lights of town.

The kiss we share, it begins with a trembling spark that soon ignites into a bolt of electricity skipping across my lips. We watch the sun rise, the morning light shining through her bedroom blinds. I hold her in my arms as we sleep, our bodies melt together under the sheets.

And when I go, I feel a twinge of sadness as I step out into the rain. She plants three kisses on my lips, each one sweeter than the last. I hold her in my arms, lifting her off the ground for a quick spin. She is beautiful, and she doesn't even know it. She is a gorgeous thing in sweat pants - crimson strands pulled back into a ponytail.

Claudette In Her Summer Dress

Roy Orbison wrote hit songs about your mother, such a pretty woman with long black hair and emerald green eyes. She lit up the lives of so many people, and passed all her beauty on to you. In her day, she was at the top of the hit parade. A sensation set in black-and-white, she was a vision in the night.

The way she stole the hearts of men, given as gifts to a daughter who pickpocketed it from my chest, still beating. A glamorous smile, diamond earrings sparking under spotlights - a perfect set of pearly whites between a pair of ruby red lips. She gave all of these wonderful things to you.

Her name, a secret trapped behind the teeth of every brokenhearted boy. Her voice, sweet like Hemingway's lemonade, an intoxicating tonic filled with hushed whispers and lovely words. Her daughter sips champagne from an antique glass stained with lipstick. She spins in circles before me, graceful like a ballerina, careful not to spill a drop from her glass.

The girl with scarlet hair, she twirls about the dance floor in a black strapless dress. She takes her place in a museum of fine art amongst the Van Gohs and Rembrandts. Mother taught her how to move, how to swing her hips to the beat. She is a spinning ballerina in black, a beauty I refuse to share - a secret I will always keep.

Dirt Road

Fireflies in the late August light, lower abdomens pulsating with bright green glow. The sun slides behind mountain passes and blades of grass sway in the warm wind.

She makes her way to the end of the dirt road, gravel filling the gaps in-between her toes. Green and white checkered skirt and a tight white sweater; cold soda pop sweating in french-tipped fingers.

And here he comes, old rusted pickup truck ambling down the path. Dust swirling up a storm behind the mud-caked tires. Out by the lake, his sister slides out of cutoff shorts hanging from her hips. Flip-flops are kicked away, she makes a run for it. Feet smacking against hot wooden boards, splashing into the deep, green water.

Back on the dirt road, he comes to a stop. The girl is as ripe as a Georgia peach and sweet enough to eat. Long, blond hair tied back with pretty yellow bows - a taste of honey blowing in the sweet evening wind.

I Want To Be Sedated

The doctor took one look at me and said, "Son, you've been through a hell of time here lately." I nodded, unsure of how to reply to this straightforward statement. He flipped through the carbon paper copies attached to his clipboard, making notes and clicking his pen in-between chicken-scratch sentences.

"No chance for reconciliation?" he asked. I laughed slightly and shook my head. "It's never easy. It's as if, all at once, your life folds in on itself, isn't it?" I nodded yet again. With a sigh he ripped a slip from his prescription pad. "There's no cure for a broken heart but time," he said as he handed the slip of paper to me. "Luckily, you don't need a prescription for time. For everything else though, this should help."

An assortment of pills, milligram upon milligram of wondrous mind-altering effects to distract me from the fact that I am not happy. The drugs are supposed to level out the highs and lows, the peaks and valleys of my anxiety-ridden mind. The pills are poured into iodine-tinted plastic bottles.The dosage has been increased. I look forward to being sedated.

The Ghosts of Downtown, Anywhere.

Since late July, there is a part of me that dies every morning at 9:45 a.m. It's the precise time that I wake up and realize I've just spent another night alone. I throw clothes on and run on a treadmill until my pulse reaches 170 and my bones burn. I shower and sleep walk through the rest of the day, operating on the fact that no one here knows me at all.

I exist in this city as a faded photograph. Nothing more than a ghostly form haunting the bridges and tunnels of this town; sorrowful groans echo off brick walls. I am alone and rather empty inside, and every day I strive to fill the gaping hole in my chest with songs or books or films. Often these trivial, material possessions suffice as a pending distraction and serve as a small inhale of inspiration in a rather downbeat life.

And it's strange that, even though I feel so empty, my heart does not know when to quit. I find myself falling in love every day, and I feel increasingly stupid for this. My heart is broken easily, and my spirit even easier to crack. I am a glutton for punishment, and I seem to fall for the ones who deal it out so effortlessly.

Some day I will be loved, by a girl much more qualified than the ones I so foolishly entrusted before. She will be great. I take comfort in the fact that some day, I will find her - even if it is not now. Even if it is 10 years from now, I will find her and she will be perfect. She will set me on fire and burn with me until we both burn out like dying stars.

Tell Me A Story

I miss being loved, even if it was halfheartedly. Hard and fast, that is how I fell for her. Loving her came so naturally, like breathing in and out. For her, it did not come so easily. I grew on her and eventually she learned to love me, though her understanding of the subject was flawed from an overall lack of experience.

It's all just an opinion, of course, but no one ever cared to put much effort into loving her, except me. Others quit when it was convenient. Disappearing fathers and mothers who grew cold taught their daughter few lessons on what it meant to love. Pretty little brown-haired girls who had to raise themselves found love in Jesus but not at home.

But I loved her. I loved her more than anything in this world. I loved her unconditionally. No matter the circumstances, no matter how selfish she was or how unfair the situation - I couldn't help but love her. She's a stubborn, shallow girl. A girl who has had her unfair share of broken home blues and disappointing truths. These were her faults, and they made her beautiful.

Deep down inside, I do want her to be happy - despite these words I write. She changed. What she wanted a year ago is not the same as now. There's this part of me that, for whatever inexplicable reason, still misses her. I think about her every day; it's hard not being a part of some one's life when you've spent so long working your way into it.

But now she's nothing more than a collection of words in this old notebook, a spiral-bound reminder of who she used to be.

Wake Up

Living out their lives in the grocery store aisles, making plans they can't wait to carry out. Boys and girls, so happy in perfect little lives. They exchange glances and tender kisses on dates at expensive restaurants, but the good boys are by themselves tonight.

The dangerous kind, they always steal the spotlight. The bad little girls, out at all hours of the night, singing karaoke in some dimly-lit bar. Bad boys with tattoos and pierced lips, searching for girls who are quick to believe a well-placed lie in their ears. The good boys, they'll be sleeping alone tonight - aching to find out what it's like to be loved.

They dream to discover a lover who knows them better than the lyrics to a karaoke song - some one hit wonder performed in front of drunken strangers. And all the good boys, they're lonely and empty and easily broken - they know just as well as anyone, but they're just not built to be tough. It's not in their makeup.

The good girls, they're no where to be found. Taken by the boys who say the right words, guys with nice cars and bank accounts to buy diamond rings. Boys who are destined to take them for granted - the kind of boy a nice guy aspires to, but can never be.

Pictures At An Exhibition

Blisters on his fingertips, the piercing static of rock and roll guitar in his ears. He drinks at Willy Deville's pub, admiring pictures hanging in crooked frames. With a coat stolen from the rack and a wallet to match, he smokes a pack of cigarettes and fills the ashtray with 5 years of good health long gone.

She stands with mascara running down her cheeks, staring in disbelief. At an art exhibit on the other side of town, she folds her arms across her chest. She takes a step forward, thoughtfully studying the composition of such focused inspiration - the multitude of brushstrokes that went in to creating a beautiful mess.

Behind him sits a man with a bandage on his head. In a blue t-shirt he sits licking fingertips before gently lifting a cup of coffee to his chin. A Hispanic housewife reads the classifieds, a busboy drops a handful of silverware into a plastic tub.

And she is still just simply standing, so tempted to reach across the velvet rope and touch the raised paint dried on canvas. Somewhere in the distance, a little boy tries to push his way through a revolving door and is soon helped by father in his business casual attire.

Her name was Elaine, but she called herself Jill - and little did she know that the man of her dreams was sitting at the bar. She would start by asking for a cigarette and then he would strike a match. And only through common conversation would she discover that his name matched the signature on canvas.

Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body
"Mean Girls" meets "Carrie"

Devil's Kettle is exactly the kind of shit-hole town I grew up in. The high school is the epicentre of culture, and every stereotype and trend can be found in mass quantity. There's the jocks, the Emo undead kids, beautiful plastic cheerleaders and the goofy weirdies that fill up their electives with creative non-fiction credits.

Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) is the most beautiful girl in Devil's Kettle - she was voted Miss Snowflake two years ago when she was in the prime of her cultural relevance. Her best friend, Anita "Needy" Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) is the adorable klutz hidden under baggy clothes and Lisa Loeb eyeglasses.

One night the girls go out to Devil's Kettle's one and only nightclub - more like a bar that resembles a white trash Mos Eisley Cantina. Jennifer and Needy have gathered at this hive of scum and villainy to check out an underground indie band called Low Shoulder. The boys in the band are what you might expect, tight jeans and eyeliner - black fingernail polish and moon tattoos on their necks.

But there's something different about Low Shoulder that separates them from all the other screaming Emo kids on MySpace - they worship Satan. Wait, I guess that really doesn't separate them all that much. Let me be a little more specific: they are members of the occult and are in Devil's Kettle looking to perform a ritual sacrifice.

Do you know how hard it is to make it in the music industry these days? All those pretty boys in mascara, belting out their emotions in all-black suits? The only way you can make it these days is sell your soul to the devil - or sacrifice a nice little piece of ass like Jennifer Check to the cause.



After escaping certain death at the hand of emotional occult followers, something has changed in Jennifer. Under the surface, there's something evil - and not just high school evil. We're talking real evil, the kind that spews black bile onto the kitchen linoleum and makes guttural noises not of this world.

Written by Diablo Cody, the stripper-turned-screenwriter, Jennifer's Body is a horror/dark comedy film. This lovely composite of Mean Girls and Carrie features Cody's signature dialogue: overindulgent, witty banner sprinkled with only the most obscure references . Jennifer's Body is absolutely laced with it, and just like in Juno, it doesn't always hit the mark.

Say what you will about Megan Fox, but the girl is smoldering - and lets be honest, that's all that really matters. She's not out to win an Academy Award, she's on the silver screen to wear belly shirts and show off her ridiculously hot bod. The other characters hold their own and give the film a true '80s high school horror feel amidst Fox's pure sex appeal.

When Collin (the resident goth kid, played by as Kyle Gallner) shows up, I felt as if I was transported to 1988's A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, where jocks and brainiacs and beauty queens are all best friends. As a side note, Kyle Gallner will be submerged back into the high school horror universe in the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake, oddly enough.

Amidst the over-the-top gore, obscure too-hip teenage slang and that wonderful lesbian encounter between Fox and Seyfriend - Jennifer's Body delivered on being an entertaining movie. Not only that, but there's something very profound to be said for a shallow, insecure girl who victimizes boy after boy trying to satiate an insatiable hunger for attention and love.


"Hey everyone, come see how good I look!"

McGowan Smoke Break

A man stops traffic in a three-piece suit, striding across the black-and-white striped crosswalk. A cigarette slowly burns between his fingertips.

She makes an impressive exit from a storefront revolving door. The sunlight bathes her every inch. If looks could kill, her legs would get a life sentence and in the space between those silver high heels and tailored black skirt, there is a work of immaculate beauty. A flawless landscape of porcelain flesh, not a scar or blemish to be found.

On any other day, at any other city intersection, two star-crossed lovers would never meet. But on McGowan Avenue, where the children run free from the leashes of adolescence, there's a man with a lit cigarette eying the most incredible set of legs to ever walk down East 42nd Street.

Her name very well may be Mary Elizabeth, and he looks like a Paul - but possibly a Daniel. Shaggy hair hangs in a pair of pale blue eyes, focused solely on her thighs and how they slide in that black pencil skirt. Oh, the wondrous and mesmerizing sway of her body in the midday sun. It's enough to make a man stop smoking.

It’s enough to make a man stop dead in the middle of the street, oblivious to a screaming Cadillac. Sweet Mary Elizabeth, her looks could kill; bury Paul, or Daniel, in that three-piece suit.

Snow On The Ground

There's snow on the ground in London, and there will be hell to pay if she's not home by eleven. Put your ear to the door, it's The Beatles on the BBC, playing out a tune that was a hit before your mother was born. Within earshot of Harrison's guitar there is a small boy out on the porch with a bright red firetruck, screaming at the neighbor's dog.

And your father, he's breaking his back, shoveling snow off the pavement, while you spend the night having drinks at The Cavern with some nameless stranger you just exchanged stories with. And all this boy wants is your clothes off, which might not be so bad tonight. In fact, you're hoping that's all he wants.

Mother is knitting scarfs for children that grew up too fast, afraid to let go of their rosy red cheeks in the winter wind. And there you go, smoking cigarettes with a boy at the bar, just a cab drive away from his bedroom in the dark. And somewhere across the universe, there waits a boy on mother's front porch who wishes you would just come home.

But you won't. You won't be back in by eleven. Brokenhearted mother and father retire to separate beds, little boy lays restless under solar system sheets - and you sink deeper into the lovely warmth of his arms. You feel his breath on your neck, his fingers caught up in pretty little tangles in your hair.

It's snowing in London, so let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born.

All Those English Boys You Met

In the town where I was born, there was a woman with eyes like Julia Adams and a body to match. She tasted like raspberries, as I recall, freshly-picked from Eden; forbidden and oh, so tempting. I dreamed of sinking my teeth into such sweet sin.

And all the boys, they lined up just to stop and say, "Hello." They ached to ask her for a dance and often daydreamed about the day she would accept. But boys like them and boys like me, could never make her happy. We lived in our parents' basements and devoted summer months to part-time jobs on the pier.

She went backpacking in Europe, flirting with all those English boys she met, while I sat reading paperback novels in my father's garage. She kissed young lads on the lips the way I incorrectly guessed the answer to tonight's Final Jeopardy question. Without hesitation, without a clue. A spontaneous explosion of moving lips and grasping hands.

She is certainly a piece of work; a work of art so perfectly shaped and designed I fathom the thought of such a creator.

A Prize Fighter's Broken Jaw

For eight hours straight, my jaw stays firmly clinched. In my sleep, grinding teeth to keep from saying your name. Quick to forget, quicker to remember the way you left - or rather the way you stayed and sent me away. What you left of me was jagged and sharp; shattered pieces of a heart smashed on the kitchen linoleum.

Like a child who broke a working mother's vase, I slowly gathered the fragments and did my best to piece them back together. From a distance, the vase appears untouched - but upon further inspection one can see the chipped porcelain and cracks filled with beads of quick-drying glue.

As soon as mother goes to fill her favorite vase with water, it's apparent that its function is no longer functional. The vase holds no water, and my heart too has lost its purpose. I imagine some day the cracks will close and slowly scar over, that my heart will be able to hold wondrous things once again - but not right now.

I'm leaking all over the floor, every bit of love slips through the cracks and covers my shirt in a lovely shade of red. Not even the contempt and hatred for what you've done can be contained - I feel it slowly fading away. The enamel wears from my teeth after hours of grinding in my sleep. I seem to be falling apart, held together only by calories and sips of liquor from an old metal flask.

How She Changed with Each Passing Day

That girl is gone, the one I knew before. I could not begin to estimate the specific date, but perhaps she left in pieces at a time. I shared our bed with a stranger in her clothing. Every dinner date was like our first, filled with awkward silences between the clumsy conversation.

The girl I knew before, the one I loved so much, I miss her even still. I wonder where she went, why she left, if she'll ever make it back. She became someone else; finally caught the growth spurt she missed a few years back. She grew out of my love - tired of putting up with me, and so she threw me away with last year's fashions.

"All you need is love," at least that is what a pop song said. Even if love is all you need, it wasn't good enough for her. I was not enough. We were in love, but as she told me, "Sometimes it takes more than love." Her priorities changed, and in a month filled with nothing but time spent away, she decided she could live comfortably without me.

I suppose she was right. I'm sure she spends her nights at married couple's house, feeling in the dark for what her life is supposed to be like. She doesn't have a clue, nor do I. We're both kids lost in a crowded shopping mall, separated from hand holders to guide us toward the exits. It has been quite some time since I've been alone, and truth be told I've never been able to cope with loneliness.

My friend, she tells me, "You've got to be happy with yourself," and I realize that I'm not. I'm lost without you, without someone there beside me. But you're not the girl I fell in love with, and I know I'm not missing much - just a silly, young girl who puts on a suit of armor to cover her broken heart.

Fair-Weather Farewell

A fond farewell to fair-weather friends and part-time lovers. What good am I to them? Here's a long, hard goodbye I'm sure you won't even notice. Secondhand romances, missed opportunities and poor decisions - everything that fell apart before it came together.

Here's to the last of my sleepless nights, the times I tried and came up short. I wish that I could hate you half as much as I hate myself, but I can't - and I don't. To every moment spent with you in my life, farewell. Here's to the ones who never take up for me in a fight - the ones who play it safe and never choose sides. Here's to defenses, heaped and broken on the floor.

The casual sin of lying alone in the dark with perfect strangers - the result of continuously canceled plans and the fair-weather friends who back out on rainy days. Here's to going it alone, and finding some solace in being lonely and alone. Here's to records spinning into infinity, and alcohol to deaden the still-twitching nerves. Farewell to all I once held on to.

Hello to heartache. Hello to sleeping 'til noon and putting on extra pounds. Here's to a loss of motivation - a loss of interaction between my heart and the world around it. Here's to the space behind my eyes, the one you used to occupy. There's nothing there now, except static and the occasional memory of how my love for you was nothing more than a lie to myself.