and it comes to be, that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel...

a barren expanse... lifeless. earth cracked and split like chapped lips, but without blood to convey the agony. nothingness. not even a breeze. not a soul around. my heart.

then... slowly, haltingly, storm clouds begin to form overhead, black smoke against the gray sky. billowing upward, the smoke of my cigarette. it reaches the clouds and multiplies, thick and smoldering. i'm terrified. but their fury brings the promise of change, so i hold my breath and wait. a light rain begins to fall, in a bowling alley. then harder, a downpour, the sound maddening. off in the distance, a figure offers me an umbrella. i think he's about 6'4"...?

and then through my cloudy heart, a single ray of light... a moment... a heart-stopping swirl of hormones and giggles and flesh and love and saliva... a moment that could last an eternity. time freezes in place, and all the individual elements come together in a rush - the hole in the wall, my chain falling from the dresser, clothes on the floor, the red bible, a broken shoe, tattoo-less shoulders, the sound of an invisible shower, reaching for towels in the dark... my lips part to form his name...

then a blinding flash of reality... and me without sunglasses. i've only got these rose-colored glasses that someone once gave me... parked at a gas station. in a red grand am.

...

he asked me... if i were an animal, what animal would i be? i told him a butterfly, but i didn't fully explain why. i'd be a butterfly because they're never sad. they're beautiful, and everyone loves them. and everyone knows that if you touch their wings, they will lose the ability to fly, and ultimately will die. PEOPLE UNDERSTAND BUTTERFLIES. they understand that they are delicate and take care to see that they aren't injured. and once a butterfly has done all it can in one particular place, it can grasp ahold of the wind and fly away to another beautiful place, and everyone understands. because that's what butterflies do. butterflies are only expected to be beautiful and to fly about as they please. and nobody hurts a butterfly.

but i am not a butterfly, and i'm not asking anyone to understand...

"...is just a freight train coming your way"

- Metallica "No Leaf Clover" -