May 2nd, 2001
It's dusk and the world is burning down, again.
Flakes of ash and still bright sparks fall like snow and you think they probably burn when they touch your skin, but you're not so sure. You think burning is bad, remember melted faces and tortured eyes. You think the opposite of burning is freezing, but you're not sure that's any better. You remember blue-black, ice-rimmed skin, toes and fingers snapping off. Either way, they die. The ash continues to fall, like feathers, like leaves, like snow and it probably burns but you're not sure it hurts. You touch it with your fingertip and it crumbles. You watch it smear on your skin and miss it when it disappears.
Through the smoky haze, the last drops of a bloody sunset sink below the horizon. You think of suicides and motel rooms. Cream-skinned girls with their veins spilling open on dirty porcelain. Their eyes forever staring at the spiders on the ceiling, their swollen tongues choking on their last regrets, their dirty hair floating in pink stained water. Girls you once adored, never again yours to hold. Dead, dead, dead and they tell you they deserved it. You wonder what the girls' names were. You wonder what it means to adore, anyway. The sun sinks and another day is gone.
Beside you, the jewel-eyed boy breathes out a plume of blue smoke. In the grey half-light, his silhouette looks haunted. You wonder where his ghosts sleep, in his head or in his belly or in his mind. He is small and he is shrinking, day by day. He is a home for the haunting dead and they are running out of rooms to hide in. He turns to face you and you have to look away. You don't remember if you have eyes capable of meeting his.
Staring at the ground, you ask him if this is the end of the world.
He says, "Not yet."
From the corner of your eye you see him smile. It looks like it hurts. You can't remember why, but you think you're glad. The jewel-eyed boy reaches out and grips your hand. His fingers tremble and his nails dig into your palm and you think surely you must be glad.
Flakes of ash are falling, like snow, and you can almost picture crystal-edged flashes of sweetness from the sky, once upon a time. You open your mouth to catch a falling flake on your tongue, wanting a taste, just a little taste. You think it maybe hurts but you can never remember the difference, anymore.