Music in the Background

There was nothing to share. Plenty to sacrifice. He pulled up in a honda. Older than me. It's easy to know who you will love. The trick is knowing who will love you.

The tepid touch of favor. In skin that doesn't recognize. The faces you've collected. All those nights. Sneaking back into it. Pennies on the sidewalk. Meaning nothing to the pockets they fell through.

The rhythmn of selection suiting only itself. As I shuffle through the discards in my pile. Temperate and willing to accept. Everything I am not.

To them.

It's a long walk to sleep. Caught in the amber of streetlights. Borken fingernails picking at the mountain. In a process not unlike life. Just a little hole. To create a bigger one.

Just the sidewalk. Repeating my progress back to me. In a code I can't decipher. While the rain traces my shadow. As it lurks behind me. Constantly threatening to overtake

I closed the door behind us. I don't know why. Because there was no one else there.

We were looking both ways. But it came from a different direction. We were busy like hound dogs with the scent.

Until it found us. Like children caught in a nightmare. Awoken in a puddle of our own piss.

There was music in the background. As I asked him. What he'd heard.

There was music. The soft drizzle of disappointment finding the holes we never knew were there.

Until then.