I wrote this while listening to a Canadian Band called the Headstones who i think fit Grace's personality andhave used soem of their lyrics here. They are from the song 'Heart of Darkness'

I don't own Joan of Arcadia I'm just playing.

Headstones and Matrons

I lie here on manicured grass and look up to the innumerable stars and dream of the distant galaxies they command, bathing me in centuries old light and splendour. I wonder if the great philosophers looked upon these same stars and dreamed up society and it's quirks from the glare of burning chemicals farther from them physically than their dreams and yet still as present. Personally I wonder whether I'll ever see one of those orbs supernova in the sky. Then I remember the likelihood of that is less than that of my mother putting down the Merlot for the sake of actually experiencing reality.

I know it's unusual for anyone to lie in a cemetery in the wee hours of the morning and still be breathing. Even the Satan worshipers are out of here by one am. I know because I've watched them searching for an answer they hadn't already turned up and been failed by. Personally I'm here because of the sunrise, well actually watching the sunrise with the only person I knew that gave a damn about me. I trace the cold granite lettering and wonder how long it had actually been since I had been here last. As I finished rubbing the 'H' in Elizabeth it struck me. I was here the night my mother came home from the hospital and immediately picked up the bottle of whiskey from where she had left it on the kitchen counter. That was just before my foray into AlAteen. I adjust my headphones and lie back down.

'Heart of darkness

Heart of pain

Heart of darkness

And it's swimming in my veins'

There is just something about listening to the Headstones in a graveyard that makes me smile. I find it better to think of the best in a graveyard, grin and bear it, then find somewhere else to cry. I never like to cry anyways. It makes me miss the things that were important to me even more than I already do.

I conjure up the memory of the first time I knew I was loved and funny enough it was about Elizabeth Rove. I had skinned my knee when I was around five falling off my skateboard. I sat on the sidewalk holding back tears and watching as she kneeled in front of me and dabbed at the blood on my leg with one of her magically appearing Kleenexes. She picked me up and took me inside the house and pulled down her first aid kit. It was tin and I think originally white, but was flecked with many colours of ceramic glaze and one or two of Adam's drawings for good measure. A dinosaur and a sailboat with lots of water full of ripples. She pulled out an Elastoplast bandage and tore of the bottom end and pulled out the gluey fabric. She would sit me on the counter then pull the middle pieces of backing off the back and put it over the bright red spot where I had fallen, pulling the rest of the backing off and smoothing it onto my leg. Then she walked me home.

I get up it's around four a.m. from the tinge of orange on the horizon and I have to get home to do the same to my mother. Pull her up from wherever she landed after falling off her merry-go-round of the bottle.

'Seduced by the bottle, and the warmth of the syringe'

I walk up the driveway my right hand in my pocket gripping my phone. I don't know what lies passed out behind those doors, all I can make out is the penetrating silence and that isn't good for anyone. At once I'm up on my porch and swinging the door open. To quote any number of German's at some point in their lives, 'mein gott' (my god) and the smell of iron and moisture assaults my senses.

Feedback would be appreciated.