As I lie flat, staring at a poster of daffodils haphazardly taped to the ceiling, the second needle pushes through the skin of my right arm. I recall the words of the kindly spoken doctor;

"...the second one will...along with...not having to remember any parts you might not want to."

Of course, I'm skeptical. 'Pain, she means. Well, I don't care much about pain, either way.'

The sting becomes somewhat cool on my arms, chest.

These daffodils aren't really all that calming.

And then, blackness. Warm, soft, comfortable blackness. I feel smooth, moist lips pressing softly and sleepily against my mouth and face. The blinds above my bed move in a familiar rattle against the night sky. A rushing ocean of toxic and intoxicating euphoria fills my lungs and I find myself happy in the role of a drowned man.

Not even a comparable brand of bliss has visited me since Littleton and Englewood...two hundred and fifty two days...was this year that bad?

Or, when a prism'd puzzle piece falls into you possession, maybe all the others appear saturated blank and white against it.

A Friday morning mugged with brigands gloves feels like a Saturday from childhood that I could have made exist only on paper. But there is no need for nostalgia; enough relics are here to prove these hours could only sit in this reality, in this lifetime.

We have no use in padding and falsifying these hours with meaningless structure. A shitty Supreme and a powerful Monster are more than adequate tools to get me through my journey on the phantom train.

Happy. Healthy. Here. Alive. Right where I belong.

A single word creeps to the still surface from yesterday, after the needle went in.

"...tissue was...
d e g e n e r a t e d..."

And I smile to myself. Really? They used...that word?

So maybe I don't have to be Pinocchio after all. Maybe I really can be a soldier...

But now twenty six hours have passed. Blue light seeps between the cracks, and I sigh to myself. Deep in my conscious, in the room of my unilluminated desire, I had wished us dead. To find reprieve in this night, eternally awake under the light of Phoenix and Pisces. The approaching dawn and call to bed dismiss such a theory, however.

Ah, to dream a dream for another night, perhaps?

Destroy Once Done