The conductor must have asked me thirty times if I was getting off, and when I didn't move, the train rolled on. We entered a rolling grassland, and city after city. I wonder if the city goers were conscious of the girl with her face in her hands, two slips of paper in the empty seat next to her, the neon signs bathing her in a terrible blue light.

The seeds of love have taken hold, and if we won't burn together, I'll burn alone.

"I guess it doesn't matter anymore." She looked at me and all I could think about were those wrists oh dear god her tiny motherfucking wrists she looked awful. Worse than my eyes could handle. My heart swelled I looked up with big brown eyes asking "Is there anything I can do?" my voice croaked crooked and evil. This was my fault. She smiled. I saw a smile, I hadn't seen onein two years. Not since the cock roaches moved into her apartment, the drugs piled up, the bruises turned into wounds requiring stitches and the baby got taken away. But she smiled, her light blue eyes always looked watery. "No. There isn't, but thank you for asking." I focused on a smudge of red lipstick on her left canine and wished I could wipe it away with my thumb. Or hand her a napkin say "Hey you have some lipstick on your teeth," but something told me that lipstick was old and she didn't even know she was wearing any. Her mind was withered rotting at the brain stem something old and expensive buzzing in her veins. Her wrists getting thinner by the minute, the insides of her cheeks being chewed away by her molars. Jaw clenched tight. I wanted to shout out "I MISS YOU," I wanted to reach out and kiss her cheek or muss her hair, do something. I wanted to scream "I WILL HELP YOU, I WILL TRY TO HELP YOU AGAIN," but there was no more help to be had. Her lipstick was old, her wrists were getting smaller.

little hands, sad eyes, the smallest voice from the holiest of lips, ones that have never kissed or been kissed, sipped champagne or chugged a brewsky, or muttered dirty words under her wispy breath,

and he looks at her and he wonders why no ones ever loved her or wanted her and what he wouldn't give to be the one to save her, what he wouldn't give to hold those fragile bones, that lonely heart, that selfless soul

So you think I'm broken? Fix me.

who gavest as one of those immortal men
his life that his fair city might not die.

Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings.

proving to Death that Love is so and so.

with every bough that reverently bent
to touch the yellow wonder of her hair.

who the hell is going to save me? he thought.

as the knife stopped spinning the answer came:
you're going to have to save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a cigarette
b: he poured another drink
c: gave the blade another spin.

Just before he says goodnight, he looks up with a little smile and he says "If I could be like that, I would give anything just to live one day in those shoes. If I could be like that, what would I do, what would I do?"

The wind knocks the heads of the flowers together.
Steam rises from every cup at every table at once.
Things happen all the time, things happen every minute
that have nothing to do with us.

A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
but then he's still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
but then he's still left with his hands.

"No one," Seth said bitterly. "Your little secret's still safe."

He turned away so that he would not have to bear witness as she left him. He heard the door open, felt the gasp of cold air.  

"You're not the one I'm ashamed of," Laura murmured, and she walked out of his life.

Aren't there enough words
flowing in your veins
to keep you going?

to create art means
to be crazy alone
forever.

... its true history written on human skin, to be left unread.

This is just a modern rock song.

This is just a tender affair.

I count "three, four," then we start to slow,

Because a song has got to stop somewhere.

What you said to me was: "It will be nice if we meet again someday." And then you added: "At our weddings."
Do you remember?
I felt as if the earth had opened beneath my feet.
I knew that you were trying to use those cold words to push me away from you.
But you didn't seem to know it yourself.
I am a tougher person than you give me credit for, and I can only think about things in practical terms. If I really like somebody, it is not easy for me to just forget about them or suddenly start hating them. God made me to have just one love in my life. And so I went on, living day by day, thinking of you.
There must have been a reason.
That is what I thought, as I held tightly to a slender thread of hope.

A year passed, and then my "fateful day" arrived.
It was a rainy day in June.