we're still waiting for the fire. i am. are you? i don't think you are. this will not make sense. let me repeat. this. will. not. make. sense. is that the point? i think it is, but i can't be sure. breathless and covered in bruises, lying across the cracked pavement. look up at the night sky. smile. urge yourself to. smile, even if it cracks your pretty, pink lips. smile, so you will die beautiful. then we'll crawl, we'll crawl pass houses. little squares of lights, hazy and trembling in our eyes. crawl, squint and perhaps, you could catch a glimpse of what it may be like to be remotely normal. let the pavement take it's anger out on you as it scrapes the skin off your palms and knees, relishing every bit of it as it sips your crimson fluid to quench it's thirst. we'll cry, moan and collapse. i will cry, moan and collapse. was there someone with me? people will pass, people will run, people will speak and yet, they will not see you. they will never see you. the streetlights stretch across, casting shadows that threaten to cloak you and erase you forever and i would like that very much, thank you. give me something, anything, to quench my thirst. there isn't anything. you can't offer anything and neither can i. so i will bring my wrist to a jagged edge and push down on it hard, dragging it left and right repeatedly till i paint pretty splatters. we could live on that, for a while. i could drink the liquid that helps me live and yet, i will not live. then, i will give it to you. i will force you to drink it. let the liquid taint you, taint every bit of you as a person and as sinful and horrifying as it may be, you might live. then i'll keep crawling as the ringing in my ears fade out. i will keep crawling even if i am alone. i will crawl until i see nothing. i will crawl until i can't feel and then i will cry. the pavement will welcome the sadness as it quenches its thirst with the tears and then it will soften. it will soften because it cannot bear that sadness. it will be overwhelmed as its strength and solidity melt away. and then, there will be silence. there will be silence as it embraces what's left of my existence and swallows it up whole because it can't bear such sadness. it will weep at its stupidity and cry out to the night sky for help. the night sky will open up and the heaviest clouds will gather, each containing the sorrowful tears of the ones like us. the sky will weep and the pavement will absorb every drop of it. it will drink until it is overwhelmed and then the toxic, crimson liquid will spill out of the pavement gradually, mixing with the tears from the sky as they rise to become a flood of anguish that drowns everyone in it.

silence, once again.

i will not be there.