An angel I should have kept closer
Take me back
To the gun in my throat
Can I go back
And not fucking choke
Weak and spineless
Hand me the rope
Bullet or blade
It’s time for me to go
It’s time for me to go
And meet my sister’s ghost
It all comes back so quickly, but as I’m singing, then humming, running the melody on a loop, I know something is missing.
A truth between the verse I’d written, and the chorus I’d bled.
I take another hit of the blunt, leave it pinched between my lips. Then, I tap the pen to the paper, listening for a whisper.
I scribble down the wordsbladeandtrade, then I chew off a cuticle at my thumb, spitting it into the lake, circling both words for what feels like hours, until it all falls into place.
Closing my eyes, I allow the bleed out to reveal itself as a whisper beneath my breath…
Push the blade, open the gate, take her place,sever the vein
The air is cooler now. I had been on the pier for what felt like hours. Wind rustles through the tops of the trees, their ancient limbs groaning from the same ache I had tried to bury.
I paused writing after I penned the pre-chorus; staring at my blood on the paper.
I had thought about Jade and how much she wanted me to do something with my music.
“Drag us through your rubble, tough guy.”
The memory of her words had brought me a sliver of comfort, acting as a salve for the wound. But then I thought of Laiken, and the fresh body that was found at her trailer park this morning and it tore open again.
An owl hoots from somewhere; twigs and pine needles are a burnt-orange carpet beneath my feet.
It’s dark when I reach the stairs leading up to the deck. The downlights have been turned off, the only light coming from the moon, guiding my path to the top. I make the climb, then amble toward the closed glass doors, wondering for a short moment where Laiken is.
“What do you do down there?”
Her soft voice touches the back of my neck, nibbling down my spine. I turn and slowly scan behind me, searching for her until I see the glow of the cherry at her lips. Laiken’s sitting at the far corner of the deck, her legs crossed, head tilted back, pushing into the timber paneling of the house. She doesn’t look at me as she exhales a gray cloud of smoke above her.
Harlen is quiet beside her. He kills his smoke, whispers something, then gets to his feet. He squeezes her shoulder, tells us both, “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
He passes me, but not without squeezing mine too.
I drop my notebook on to the glass table, topping it with the pen and freeing my hands. They tremble when I curl them over the top of the outdoor chair, bending over slightly, elbows to my ears, hearing the door close behind me.
Laiken’s words echo when she speaks them again. “What do you do down there?”
