A/N: How hopelessly emo is this? On a scale of 1 to Avril Lavigne...?


"Mikey! Mike where the hell are you?"

"Uhh, Raph?"

"Oh shit oh shit.." He gave an address that flew by me. "Near Alfonso's Pie Parlor by Ape's house, ya know the one? Hurry...Fuck!" Click.

And that's how it happened. This is how the little voice of who I used to be, that ceaseless protester that told me I was out of control, became a roar. A True, inescapable roar, cornering me in my failure.

I'm high. I can't move, let alone rescue my brothers. Let alone be there when my family is destroyed. Let alone say goodbye. The flow of traffic lights on Steph's bedroom ceiling winks death in my direction. A truck passes, and so does Leo. A neon sign blinks, and I'll never see Donnie again. Brights flick on as Raph bleeds out and I'm miles away, left behind in happy stagnation. Life is untethered by metaphysical death. Air bows aside for my shaking hand, and the cigarette lights itself. Things will be easy now, I suppose, and I wish I could vomit at the realization of how quickly I'm allowed me to mourn my brothers. Coming down, too. What a joy...well, too late now. Might as well keep rolling.

At some point, I remember the lit cigarette smoldering between clumsy fingers, and inhale, menthol smooths, the smoke hugs my lungs and licks my fingertips. I shake Steph awake. Puddles of shadows in her eye's concaves ripple at the impact of my voice. My skin and bones drip over time's taught wires. Speak tarry tired automatic--someone else's engine idling. The back of my mind crackles and spits like a skipping radio, like foil wincing around a plastic bottle mouth. I can't remember what I said as soon I say it, and her face doesn't understand either. Her wet, soft fingers tell me that I'm crying and that she loves me. I dislodge in her embrace, and leaning heavily, smashed against the wall of my face, unravel down my spine, flexing in the wind and leaving only tendrils to steady chilled limbs.

Steph twisted on my left arm is a gouged panther, routinely scattering straight paths into oncoming traffic, with her mother's red-brown hair that smells like green apple shampoo and Chanel, lingering across my face. Transluscent shapes, all colours, bright, float around the dark rectangle room blue, emanating from the curves of crushed cans, where the sulfur street and moon white light mingle indistinguishable. It s always hard to isolate the artificial. The room is all sweet cloudy, looming unavoidable, but I m smiling salt and blissfully avalanched with coursing potential. My brain coagulated and kinked, permanently is such an ugly word...

Steph, as conscious as she could be, wrapping her arms around me, wakes me to the moment. Maybe, in the sun, it will all crash. I will be Michelangelo and my brothers will be dead and the world will close on itself until I'm stranded on a sliver of hell for eternity, alone. This is how it should be. It should be unbearable. I should commit sepukku, or self-flagellate--a dramatic gesture of remorse. But I'm blissfully happy as my life crashes around me in rhythmic waves, in tune to the harmonic heart beats shared by me and Stephanie.

Riding swells of pale self-hatred, I get a dim glimpse of the future, red and dark marginalizing the last lights available. In the backdrop of shades and colours, possible timelines shape themselves and reform too quickly to decipher, but the beauty of the experience is that I don't care. I don't care.

And when I finally turn my phone back on, and get Raph's irate voice-mail around four in the afternoon of the next day, I still don't care. And the night after that, I go home to my full and healthy family and I don't care.