I'm half dead and staring up at a handful of stars that aren't even there, a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and the taste of whiskey and wolf on my tongue. There are sounds clogging my left ear, but my right is pressed to the ground.
I'm clutching the nicotine promise but the only thing I want is to connect.
My free hand grab fistfuls of roots and my spine is folding, folding in on itself again and again and I'm afraid I may dissapear completely.
"I don't want to dissapear," And I'm screaming and I'm shivering, these bone- racking tremors that turn my stomach in on itself. I wish she was here. She's so goddam special.
Even as I'm laying here and I'm waiting for death or my wolf skin, I'm thinking of NARKOTIKA and acid tablets like vinegar, and a smoothie blend of the days and nights that none of us could distinguish. And then I'm thinking of Sam because I'm not ready to think of her yet. I can't look at the damn kid anymore, I can't look at his crazy eyes and his guitar and the paper cranes and none of it, none of it is okay.
I hate Beck for leaving. I hate every person who's ever affected anyone. I hate that the punchline of it all is so fucking funny for everyone else, every other person except the one left behind.
She's so goddam special. I just want to connect.
I can feel the wolf stir and writhe, sipping on my veins and whispering to me to just give up, and everything will be okay, Cole, if you just give up. I can fold myself into this new frame, and I can dissapear. Except I don't want to dissapear. I want her. And I want to live in a house where it always smells like summer, and there are barbecues and neighborhood block parties, and everything is balanced on her eyes because she, she drags me away from myself.
And I'm laughing in spite of it all, and I'm laughing because I'm dying, and I'm laughing at the days and the nights and the vinegar acid, and I'm laughing because so, so much depends on Isabel Culpepper.
I'm laughing even as I fall into myself and leave my human body in a tattered heap of clothes on the forest floor.