Thanks for the LOVE

Getting a ton of love from people.  Thank you so much!  I'm glad so many of you are enjoying this book.  I'm already working on Volume 2 as you Reddit users know it gets weirder.

It's still free today so get it if you haven't.  If you have - please Review it on Amazon.  Hell, review it on Goodreads anywhere.  Share and enjoy!

-M2K

Tracks Volume 1 NOW AVAILABLE for FREE

Tracks: Volume 1

Now available!    

Free downloads 9/29/15 and 9/30/15 PST - That's Pacific Standard Time and not Poppy Seed Tea!

Download and please Review and share:

Tracks: Volume 1

First off I'd like to THANK all of you lovely Redditors that have demanded a book from me.  Just reading your comments in Reddit was enough but you know what?  I'm glad I did it.  Because I edited all those stories for form, grammar and continuity.  Mostly grammar though...wow iPhone prose is a bitch.  The Reddit versions are templates and I have expanded and pushed past the text limitations to flesh out the stories.  Some stories from Reddit you will go 'Yeah I read that' and others like Withdrawal Hell Dreams will be almost completely new to you.  

I also added stories never released on Reddit that reveal more about the characters.  

With Love,
-M2K

Come back tomorrow for a Freebie!

Hi! - Check this blog tomorrow because I am going to give you a FREE gift!  What is it Morbo?  Only time will tell!  See you tomorrow...

Love,

M2K

This Half Empty Soul of Mine

The alarm screams at me from the Darkness.  Alone with the dopesick beast gnawing on my nightmare.  A pale thing with holes and bruises.  Propped up nude, I look like scarecrow corpse with madman eyes.  

And my god follows me.  Every moment of my waking life he whispers:  

"You need me child.  I will give you the pleasures of the Gods.  Walk with the Night.  Know my Love."

The first thing I do every morning is decide whether to shit or puke.  I keep a bucket by the toilet for moments when I can't decide.  One less dose has released the opiate binders in my intestines.  Emptying my guts from both ends always leaves me shaky as I prepare for work.  

Put on the Mask.  Pray the glue in the cracks holds for one more day.

I start the shower.  Purify the filth, cloak the death scent with soap.  Put on a happy face!  Only one bottle of shampoo in the shower.  I smile remembering things like Japanese Oatmeal Facial Scrub or Papaya Restoration Conditioner for Colored Hair...A woman's touch.  

It has been six years since I lived with a woman.

****

They invited 'just a few people' over.  People from Kym's work, some musician friends of Jason.  No big deal.  But people kept knocking.  Tired of opening the door every few minutes, they finally just left it open.  

And they kept coming.  

My brain is needed for this assignment and so why did I take Ari's LSD?  Jesus.  Did I really think it would make things easier?  And there is a storm churning out there...The intensity of merriment is whipping up like a cyclone of beasts.  The humming of drunken voices grows louder.  Last time I went out for a Pepsi and a piss, I watched strangers shuffle in carrying twelve packs of beer.  LSD makes me curious, so I stare.

"Oh hey man" smiles a short skater-looking suburb kid.  "Like uhm, Kym said there's a party here..?"

Behind me is a girl is being held upside down over a keg and sucks beer from the tap.  A crowd counts as her face grows red from gravity.  At 17 seconds, beer foams out her nose and she spews on our carpet.  The crowd cheers.  

I suppose there is a party.  

Back in my room Melo, Dev and three people I have never seen before have infiltrated my academic sanctuary.  The microwave is plugged in on the floor.  A coffee cup whirls within.  

"Hi Lover!" chirps Dev with wide pupils and an extra happy grin.  "We're making microwave crack."

I nod.  

"Hello Dev.  Yes.  That seems like a good idea."

"Dude" nods Melo.

"Hi!  I'm Amy!  We met at Rondo's" says a pleasant looking redhead with a pierced nose.  "This is my boyfriend Jeff and this is Autumn!"

I look at them.  Flannels, boots, piercings.  Autumn wears a black Greek fishermen's cap.  Rustic versions of city kids.  Our Northern cousins.  I go back to my desk.  The LSD is starting to pulse through my core.  Though they sit less than four feet away I have not spoken.  I turn to them.  They all look up at me expectantly.  I struggle for something to say but the moment passes.  

 

I turn back to my book and hear Dev giggle.

Two things became apparent.  First, LSD is not a party drug.  Who are these people?  The one named Autumn seems to know me.  She asks about Jason but I got lost in her t-shirt.  A cow with a cigarette wears sunglasses.  It says, 'Cool as fuck.'  As I ponder this, Autumn pulls her flannel close.  I realize I'm staring at her chest.  

Mayan hieroglyphics spiral down from the ceiling on gossamer threads and it hits me like religion a moment before a violent death.  I am Enlightened.  I am the Chronicler on this night of drunkards and freebasing microwave crack smoking fiends...Then something smashes into the hallway causing peals of familiar laughter.

Oh yeah.  The second thing.  The second truth is Kym is wildly out of control.  

***

At work, no one likes me.  I am cloaked in a Serious Man disguise.  A humorless, office drone.  I will not high five you or accept your celebrity porn.  Years ago they stopped asking me to get drinks, meet their children or hang out after work.  Now they leave me alone.

I survive here by being high.  My 10am oxy and cocaine bullet in the bathroom keeps me even.  Oh and the 3pm one.  Sometimes the emergency 11am one too.  But as I withdrawal, my humorless side becomes palatable.  I fucking hate this place.  I fucking hate these assholes.  My mask slips a lot due to the extreme physical distress of opiate withdrawal.  I catch myself frowning a lot behind the cracks of my Mask.  

I stare at the spreadsheet that shows how to bleed a third world nation we operate a lawless enterprise in.  In column D are human beings far across the sea.  In my withdrawal pain I consign them to flames without further thought.  As cruelly calculated by Accounting, we just saved 1.4%.  

I am one of ten thousand slimy tentacles writhing on a dark beast miles below the Earth's crust.

Time passes slowly here.  I open another spreadsheet and wait to die.  It's almost lunchtime.  But no one will ask me to lunch.

******

When I hear Motley Crue's 'Kickstart My Heart' cranked up ridiculously loud I know Kym found the coke.  This song is a warning.

"Uh oh Kym found the coke" cautions Melo looking up like he can sense a shift in the weather.

Dev rises from the circle of freebasing crack smokers.  Then she points at me and says, "By the pricking of my thumbs!  Something wicked this way comes!"

BOOM! The door explodes open pouring the drunken roar of the party and Motley Crue inside.  Kym puts a finger to her lollipop purple lips and goes, "Shhhh!  He's studying!"  

Then she laughs and stumbles inside.  Her followers peek into the room to see Kym's mysterious boyfriend.  Hunched over a pile of books with my mouth hanging open at Dev, I do not impress.  Kym stands there with one hand on her hip looking at me like I'm boring.    

"Whas the fucks wrong with you?" slurs Kym as more random people pile in like lemmings.  "Frying again?"

I smile.  I can hide tripping sometimes but not now.  Windowpane LSD is like walking around inside a cartoon.  Everyone is staring at me.  I'm an alien.  

Kym grabs my shirt and kisses me deeply fusing my dream world to her sexuality...I hear Dev explaining that we are her TV.  I wonder what that means...Kym slides into my lap.  Study time is over.  Smeared rainbows trail from her silver jewelry as she coke jabbers at me.  Water flows from the walls and stars twinkle in my peripheral vision.  

Tonight she wears black.  Tight black jeans, a Nirvana crop-shirt, black boots and dyed black hair coiled into two horns atop her head...I stare at the madness of her screaming blue eyes as she gossips about Jason.  Then she tilts her head like a bored predator deciding to end it now or have more fun?  She licks her lips and looks at me slyly.

"Do some coke with me babe.  Do it off my neck" she smiles leaning back.  

I inhale her scent and the cocaine.  I lick her skin and drown in the ecstasy of her delights.

****

I'm choking on this damn day.  As I lick an envelope I gag and burp up bile.  Sweating and panting I hold onto my desk and fight the urge.  Calmly, I swallow it,  Not a great start to lunch.  

I crawl into my car.  I have a view of the some trash strewn across a hillside.  I set my phone to wake me in 30 minutes.  The morphine withdrawal makes me pass out almost instantly but I wake up ill.  Groaning, I open my car door and puke.  I open a Sprite, drink half and pour the rest over my puke and pass out again.

When I wake up, I take an oxy.  Sorry taper.   Not sticking with my plan.  But since I'm starved, dehydrated and dying, I get a nice buzz.  I almost feel normal when I walk back in.  The manager that accuses me of stalling projects (100% true) sees me and nods.  I nod back.  Earlier I would have scowled.  Chalk one up for prescription drug abuse.  

I crawl through my day.  The pill buzz is brief.  The last two hours pass like gut wound murder.  But I'm watched.  I work the full 8 hours to justify my keep.  As I leave, no one speaks.

My heart has been beating wrong.  Like a caged fish flopping in my bones.  I gasp, swoon and keep moving.  Outside the sun burns so hot I could just lay down on the asphalt and die.

****

"Kiiickstaaart myyyy heeeaaaaarttt" groans Kym dramatically as the song ends.  Loud bass music begins and the walls vibrate as Kym drops to the floor giggling.

I stand up to get my smokes when she suddenly grabs my leg and pulls me to the floor.  People yank up their drinks and scatter as she roars and tries to pin me.  When she bites my chest I yell and kick over the bong.  She straddles me so I grab the coke, yank her shirt down and do a bump off her chest.  She laughs, grabs my head and sways rhythmically to the Geto Boys.  

She snorts bumps off my stomach and licks me as I stare at the gossamer stalagmites that drip crystal butterflies over me.  Kym's head whips up in a deranged cocaine glow as she howls maniacally.  Her eyes are peeled wide open like twin, exploding stars.  I reach to stroke her face but she jumps up.

"Shots!  Let's do some whiskey shots babe!"

Kym drags me out as more people stumble in to freebase Dev's microwave crack.  Our house is packed.  I feel otherworldly weird weaving through the crowd.  

"Bye-bye Lover!" yells Dev as I trail my love star into the storm.  

I am instantly surrounded by people and every single one of them is smiling.  

****

I spend my days alone.  At work I am surrounded by people I loathe.  I live in a crowded apartment complex with hundreds of people I don't know.  

Driving home, it hits me.  I'm starving.  I pull into a Taco Bell.  The young, black girl that serves me smiles professionally.  Like a lonely freak, I take her smile back to my table to ponder.  So few smiles in my life.  I wonder what it would be like to hold her dark skin in my pale arms?  I actually feel lust.  My penis still works.  

I enter traffic and crawl down the El Camino past the stores that all look the same.  So many people here.  All dressed blandly in khaki, casual office wear.  And I look like every other motherfucker.  But appearances can be deceiving.  My track marks, black bags under my eyes and the 1000 yard stare show I am the weakest creature in the herd.  The one that will be picked off first by wolves.  But no one cares.  No one notices.    

If I didn't get haircuts or go to the doctor I could avoid human contact for years in this strip mall town.

***

"There he is!" yells Jason who lunges through a throng of people to grab my hand and hug me.  Bear crushing hugs are his specialty and he lifts me off the ground like we haven't seen each other for months.  We actually ate dinner at Tacos El Unico when I dropped the acid.

It is a lovely thing being young and stupid.  There are over a 100 people in a two bedroom flat.  I sense the storm is raging slightly out of control but who cares?  It all swirls together in a melting loop of cartoon madness as I tether my brain to three anchors for sanity.  

My first anchor is Dev.  She tells me everything is alright.  I love Dev and believe anything she says when I'm dosed.  Tonight everything is gonna be alright.

Jason is another one.  He circulates and makes everyone feel awesome.  Three random Mexican guys that can't speak English followed the noise from the street into our house and Jason gave them beer.  That is so Jason.  Plus I bet he dropped at least $200-$300 bucks on the booze and pizzas that keep appearing as the night rolls on.  

My last anchor is Kym.  She is dancing which is witchcraft when you are that beautiful.  Her spell releases people from their lives so they are free.  In my LSD eye I watch her transform them to music.  No sense of self as they descend into her madness and follow the Maenad.  Howling and crazed they move like the world is burning.  Men and women surround her but I barely feel jealousy anymore.  They are part of her world.  Playthings.  She weaves through them laughing.  

Plus Kym publicly claims me with sloppy, overtly sexual displays of affection.  These embarrass the hell out of me but make me realize I am one her anchors.  A tether back to the world that lets her freely turn from flesh to energy without worrying about repercussion.  

She knows I will catch her.

****

End of the day.  My present to myself for going to work is heroin.  A foil bead tribute to the Dragon god.  I need to jump off the smack.  I need to get more pills but they are so light and feathery in their touch.  A flirting sensation that flees quickly from my weary mind...With fire I chase the Dragon across the silvery plain.

As I hold in the smoke I can hear my neighbors.  They exercise after work, eat at meal times and rear two small children.  They have goals and dreams and go places on the weekends.  

Fuck them.

I am alone.  Peanut butter toast is dinner and I'm counting pills for my evening taper.  I put them in a bag and lock the bottle in a safe.  TV bores me.  Too twitchy to read as the Dragon leaves the room.  He is winding through the furniture and slips through the window.  He takes my message to the Flower God.  

I miss you.

*****

Jason has his arm around that girl Autumn.  Kym is messing with the stereo.  Dev materializes in front of me.  She is so tiny.  Without a word she suddenly hugs me fiercely.  I freeze as I am not a hugger.  But I melt into her small embrace.  I can feel her energy and it feels good.  She releases me and smiles.

"For your next life" Dev says as loud jangly guitar sounds fill the room.

Everyone here knows this song.  My roommates play it over and over and it fills them with energy to get crazier and crazier.  With his arm still around Autumn Jason spits beer into the air and drags her into the room while yelling along with the song, "That's the way it GOES!  This city is so COLD!"

And people start howling along and jumping up and down while screaming the chorus, "Baby I'm born to loooose!"  

I can feel the old house shaking under the dreadful stomp of hundreds of boots.  It feels like they could bring it down as they howl and scream along to the song.  And fuck, it's good be alive.

**********

I wake up at my dining room table.  Seven empty beer bottles and half empty pint of Jack Daniels greet me.  I look at the clock.  Only 9:20pm.  Shit.  So many more hours until my alarm.  I feel like I'm gonna be sick so I check what's left in my taper bag.  Empty.  

Gone.  Like me.  I don't feel high.  I just feel like I can puke.  The doctor said I'd die if I keep this up.

I wonder when?

Kym Art

It is AMAZING these electro-chemical reactions from my brain are interpreted by people like Reddit user peachieekeen, visualized and given a whole new life.  It's an anime Kym from a Nintendo Universe and she is perfect.

Apparition From It's Not Enough

This was drawn by a talented artist/writer on Reddit who calls herself bottom_bitch_pikachu.

She based it from the story It's Not Enough:

"Some broken, creeping thing. A horse skull on top of of a long body. Four long, thin arms grasp a metal walker as it shuffles slowly forward on four, useless feet."

I had no idea what it meant when I wrote about the apparition.  Just a weird dream.  Someone pointed out there is a 8 legged horse called Sleipnir in Norse mythology.  All I know is bottom_bitch_pikachu's rendition seriously looks like withdrawal.  Like harsh withdrawal.

Miss Me?

"YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Jason looks out the living room curtains.  His roommate is in a sleep deprived, cocaine induced psychosis.  Haven't actually seen him pass out for days.  Now he's standing in the street yelling at cars and pedestrians.  But at least he has his clothes on.  Well, he's not wearing a shirt or his boots but at least he put on pants and a jacket.

"The DARKNESS COMES!" screams the madman pointing a Corona bottle at a Muni bus before he throws it at the sleazy Calvin Klein ad on the side.  

"Here I am motherfuckers!  You fucking SUBHUMAN PIECES OF SHIT!"

As he bellows and raises his arms over his head in an aggressive, dominant male display like his primate ancestors, Jason spots the missing kitchen knife shoved into his waistband.  

Oh boy.  With a heavy sigh, Jason pulls on his jacket and jogs down the stairs past the curious stares of the neighbors.  These are cool people.  The Mission District is a pretty forgiving place.  But when your shirtless, 6'2 roommate with a braided mohawk stands in the street throwing bottles and screaming...Well, words like forgiving take on a new meaning.  

Best to get this over quickly.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They are all around me.  I can't always see them...but I can feel them when I reach out with my mind.  With my mind.  My...

"HEY!"

The BEAST runs at him...oh shit.  

"Jason?"

"Hey dude.  Let's go inside ok?"

"I can't.  YOU locked me out."

"No man.  YOU went out and locked the door behind you.  Old habits I guess.  Hey.  Can I hold the knife dude?  It would make me feel better."

I look at him.  He looks like a demented bunnyman.  A big fucking smile and mad bunnyman eyes.  I pull out the knife and stare at him a moment.  Then I hand it over. Handle first for safety.

"Let's get out of here" says Jason looking around.  "We'll be lucky if no one called the cops."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Kym has been gone for more than a week and it's like civilization is breaking down.  The place is trashed.  Broken glass, burnt carpet, shattered dishes and piles of garbage everywhere.  Plus his roommate has reverted into some sort of psychotic, primal version of himself.  He consumes any drug in front of him and drinks all day and night.  The place stinks of stale beer from all the empty and broken bottles.  The cocaine gives him energy to push past the bounds of sanity and launches him into full fucking asshole mode.  

I stopped going out with him.  It always ends badly.  Puking on bars, getting thrown out, all the fighting, running from bouncers and cops and always throwing shit...  

He's usually cool.  The guy that handles the bills and reminds you to lock the door at night.  So polite and thoughtful. Usually the most level headed and sane one of us all...

SMASH!

"Hey!  What the fuck?!  Did you just throw a fucking bottle at me?!"

And the bastard stands there smiling like a loon and shrugs.

"Missed the trash Jase.  Hey, you have any more coke?"

"You fucking stole more than a 8ball!  And you trashed my room doing it!"

"That was your room?" he asks seriously.

Jason ponders for a moment.  What if I just lay his ass out?  Just clock him?  Sometimes all a guy needs is a good ass kicking...But he looks so fucking helpless and then there is the whole friendship thing.  Jason sighs and searches his memory for anyone who has valium.  Maybe slip some in his beer...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And when Kym left holy shit.  Now that was a fight.  It sounded like they were throwing each other through the walls.  Just beating the living shit out of each other.  But when I looked it was all Kym.  She was swinging one of the kitchen chairs at him while he taunted her.  She smashed the table, the stove and the walls with the heavy wooden chair as he laughed and dodged out of the way.  

"You're such an asshole!  I fucking HATE you!" she screamed while waving the chair in the air.

"Fine!  You fucking hate me so much then LEAVE!"  

"You'd like that so you can go fuck that stupid slut!"

"What?!  What are you talking about?  You're crazy Kym!  Fucking crazy!"

"Don't call me CRAZY!" she screamed as she launched herself across the room at him.

"Crazy!  Crazy!  CRAZY bitch!"

And with an unearthly scream - she threw the chair at him.  

Kym's a big girl and can punch like a man.  Jason knows this from getting sucker punched by her at a party.  You have to keep an eye on her when she gets loaded.  So when Kym took a running start and threw the chair, she threw it hard.  Caught off guard, the chair floored him.  Knocked his ass backwards across the kitchen and straight into the open dishwasher.  Plates, bowls and glasses smashed from all the spikes on his leather jacket.  But he popped up quick.  Had a bad look in his eye.  For a second I thought I have to get between these two coked out beasts...but he just glared at her, turned and stomped out the door.  

She packed her shit and left.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The answering machine:

Thursday. Sept 5, 1996 1:44 am.  

Jase...dude.  Oh man.  I fucked up and (incomprehensible) Melo.  Tell him I'm sorry.  Fuck he's gonna kick my ass isn't he?  Shit I gotta go...

Thursday. Sept 5, 1996 2:12 am.

If you get this lock the door!  Those Soviet pygmies are following (incomprehensible).  Like the ones by the window?  (Whisper)I'm gonna get a  (incomprehensible)...so FUCK him!  And fuck you too!  I know you're there listening to the fucking robot!  

Thursday. Sept 5, 1996 3:45 am.

(Kym whispering and slurring)I know you're fucking there listening to this you FUCKING FUCK FUCKER!  Why won't you LOVE me?   Delam barat tang misheh!  My heart HURTS so bad babe!  My fucking heart! I need to- (Smashing glass sound.  Line goes dead.)

Thursday. Sept 5, 1996 4:17 am.

(Someone playing Alice Cooper's 'Welcome To My Nightmare' until the machine runs out of space.)

Thursday. Sept 5, 1996 4:46 am.

Kym crying. (Garbled, clicking noises and incomprehensible slurring in two or three languages followed by one, long howling scream.)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Melo helped him up the stairs after he kicked his ass.  Now he's passed out on the ground.  His face is all lumpy.  Melo said he deserved it and I concur.  Fucker trashed my room again.  I have to keep the coke on me until this situation changes.  

Not good.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I wake up sore.  Every muscle feels either trampled, crushed or yanked apart.  OD again?  Beaten?  My body is drugged, limp and shattered.  Groaning I roll over.  My thoughts are carried by ants that slowly creep back into my ears.  They return home carrying my shame.  Black crumbs of misery.  But the last ant sneaks in holding a glowing shard of pure starlight.  Hope.  And I feel ok for a moment.  But then the world heaves up, collapses and crushes me.  The ant smuggling starlight hides inside my heart.  

I shudder thinking of her screams.  Like vines twisting towards me across the cables and wires.  So very distant and sad.  Love ripped apart by two drug crazed animals and scattered across frozen landscapes like bones.  Blurry memories of fucked up shit I pray is untrue...And then the Mercy.  I pass out again.  

I wake up on some random fucking day.  

Daylight filtering through the curtains whispers of a life beyond the windows.  My life neglected.  School, job and friends just slipping away in the passage of time.  And a normal day awaits me.  Normal people doing normal things.  They wake up healthy, go to school or work.  Maybe have a beer at the end of the day with friends.  And they speak of normal things.  No one says anything about the bruises and weeping wounds in the crook of my arms.  They do not ask why my right hand is bigger than the left one...  

Jesus.  New holes in my arms and hand.  A machine gun pattern of lost days. Abuse and shards of memories.  Bad ones. More fucking holes.  

So I add AIDs and Hepatitis to my ever growing list of Fears.

Far away across the dream, my heart hurts.  The rhythm is off.  Like a jazz drum beat.  When it scatters madly in my chest I know I'm dying.  I have been injecting too much cocaine...Cocaine and heroin.  Speedballs.  That girl with the stupid hat taught me that one.  Autumn?  Our secret.  No Kym.  No Jason.  Just me, Autumn and a new way to get higher than high.   

As I remember her explaining why Jason's coke is good because it actually dissolves, I cringe. Betrayal? We weren't fucking but it felt like we were fucking people over. And I helped her shoot it in her neck...the intensity in her eyes as she watched the mirror. Her lifeblood filled the rig in two pulsing heartbeats and squirted out the side.  

"Ok. Don't tell Jase - 'babe'!" she teased me a moment before she made a snorting noise and her eyes rolled back into her skull.

Jesus.  Injecting coke.  And screaming and laughing while we did it over and over again.  And heroin?  Or was it morphine?  The rush was so sudden and intense...Autumn has to hold me up as I convulsed.  I think she slapped me when I kept blacking out.   

My ghost is trying to rip free from my body.  I don't blame him.  

Fuck.  I miss Kym.  Like a blackhole in my Universe sucking my soul through the starlight of her eyes.  My anchor.  Her love kept me here.  Now I'm gone.    

No dreams.  Nothing but Darkness.  

And the Darkness comes.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Fucker has slept in the hall for two solid days.  Today I dragged him out of the bathroom so I wouldn't have to piss over his head.  While I pulled him down the hall he laughed like a madman.  Then he passed out again.  I keep him on his side.

Fuck him.  Should I stash all my shit at Autumn's place and call an ambulance?  Not sure I trust that chick 100% with my stash.  Shit not even 50%.  

I don't think he needs an ambulance.  I mean he wakes up long enough to puke and pee.  Usually in the toilet.  Maybe I'll make him some toast.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

KNOCK KNOCK.

I look around.  I seemed to have wormed my way back to the living room.  There is a bottle of water near my face and a plate of toast that has a couple bites in it.  The sun has set somewhere.  Night is returning but something has yanked me back to the Real.  

I look around confused.  KNOCK KNOCK.

The haze of lost days feels like stones piled over my body.  I push them aside groaning.  I was raised by people who answer doors and telephones.  I grab the door handle and pull myself up.  As I open the door, my heart sighs.  The rhythm is steady and grows stronger.  Life begins anew.

Behind her, the sun has sunk burning into the sea.  It paints Kym in the twilight patterns of dusk.  A saffron colored floral print sundress hangs off her frame.  She stands motionless in four inch platform heels and her dress ripples in the gentle bay breeze.  A portrait of fashion and beauty with her usual twisted twists.  A spiked dog collar and she shaved her head except for her bangs which sprout pink and orange over the blue eyes that devour me.  Our souls meet in her stare, she studies me for an instant and smiles.  She knows I am still her creature.  She slips into my arms without a word and in that moment, I know love for one thousand years.

But I am weakly human.  Jealous and petty.  Carrion bird thoughts flutter through my mind.  Should I ask her if she is out of oxycodone?  Or heroin?  Are you strung out Kym?  Did you miss me?  Or did you miss the pleasures of the city?  

It's me right?  Please...

I say nothing.  I just hold her.  Inhale her essence.  Her desert blood, the myrrh, the stars screaming across the Night and a life not meant to be lived without her.

"I had a fight with my parents" sniffs Kym.  "And my sister.  Brother.  The stupid neighbors and grandpa.  But grandma's cool.  Says Hi."

"Hello grandma" I smile.  

"I shaved my head."

My fingers run through her shaved platinum blond stubble.  The feeling excites me.  Kym changes her appearance often but she is always the most beautiful woman in the crowd.  Like a model or celebrity or some other person way out of my league.  And she breathes with her face nestled in my neck.  Her tense body sighs and melts into mine.  

This is enough.  Fuck the world.  Let it slip into madness and flames.  Just for her smile, I'd watch everything burn.  

Yes she knows.  I know.  But I can't help it. I have to tease her.

"So...what?  You're here because...?"

Her eyes roll beneath a tired smile that fought every single person in her world to a standstill.  She looks at me and I grin.

"Because I forgot my jacket" she says.

"Oh?"

"Yeah it's cold at night downtown" she says grabbing my hair and pulling me closer to the lion's den.  "I'm not used to my shaved head.  Babe?  Is it ugly?"

"No. You're hair is beautiful" I say as my lips brush against hers.  

I can hear Jason come out of his room and walk into the hallway.

"Can I please get my jacket?" she breathes softly into my ear.

"Yes" I say closing my eyes.  "You'll need it when we go out tonight."

"Hey!" exclaims Jason.  "You're back!"  

Kym and I open our eyes, lock for a moment in our private forever...and then we break the spell for the fool.  Jason stands behind us in tighty-whitey underwear and his The Dodger's Suck! t-shirt.

"Great." says Jason.  "Dishes in the sink bitch."