Ashley's Ashes.

I am in the freshly casted shadows created by the city --- a halo-less sanctuary for angles: a city of blue tile housing all the burning figures shaped to form familiar creatures in Ceramics---skyline, to the east and very far away, standing on the edge of the Paridices' Cliffs looking out at the sea of lights below: They burn on and on like an oil field; as if a million miles of roses set a-fire.

We grew up too fast. Our lives float in the headlines for all to see. [And] Somewhere these same people are keeping records and writing books : which for now we can call them: "The Books About the Basic Flaw of friendship...Or "A few Books About A Feeling That Starts With The Letter A"....Or "Any Title That Books About a Man That Cares About A Girl Too Much Might Have". We after all wrote them and as we turn the pages we call out to the sounds of nothing: The stillborn-like sounds of a vanishing alphabet. A missing arrangement of letters--- which keeps Our secret--- a different vocabulary with a message for us. Rescind this line and several ties they take a piece of us with them---That sometimes words give up trying to speak about and silently walk off the edge of the page.

_____________________

Back then I was just a few months past 17 years old, when my best friend died ( You). Helplessly she fell from these cliffs. The cold waves of the unforgiving river washed her away, the current pulled her downstream, and blanketed her for the forever sleep.....

{ I still remember all those nights in the basement, the seconds are still screaming---On and on, and on and on, never ending with no end in sight--- and holes in clouds are minutes passing that strike like all the lightning rods of Zuses that could never pull the storm that rages for you from me.

You where well out of reach when I grabbed for [ your hand made from] Porcelain.

______________________

The rain has came. Yet it will never wash you away.

So now I set in this parked car listening to the lullaby from the lips of carbon monoxide: A Memory ...(of what it felt like to burn on and on and not just fade away.)...But it's too fragile to hold: it slips by like the fading oxygen level; And it shatters in my callous hands behind the scenes of the picture enclosed in an aged frame.

In time the seasons will seal these shards--- that lay to rest--- embeded into the slits that denote both wrists; (I sewed them up: I stitched all these dead end veins, that lead to you, into the streets we once traveled with tired feet) I sewed them up into the sewn up seams of my heartstrings---that sing like a petal pulled from an open flower. A flower surrounded by fields where children sign but never make a sound slipped from their lips. Melodies that do not know quite where to land like the ashes of love letters blowing in the wind. Like the one I wrote you...

"The leaves will fall and so will you. When you do please have me buried under them too"

But now I write you in blood.

"....There must be out there somewhere[ A place] that cigarettes burn through the night and the leaves do not abandon their trees to the light. A land where the skies above are always clear as if the summer season never ends. Won’t you take me there?"

I remember when I fell in love with you. I was only five at the time. You spun the bottle, as seconds pass, you closed your eyes--- like it was nothing at all ---so we kissed; unlike little innocent kids do. It would not be long,and, at some point, eventually we all go home.We walk along the wire tied between horizons knocking the leaves from the trees; As they fall from the branch they looked beautiful: they hung frozen in the air spinning around. In the stillness among their aerial acrobatics we make a promise between us: 'If the sun does not rise We will replace it with the H-bomb explosions that ignite when we are together.' }

......We went down to the water's edge.Wave after wave after wave...The tide keeps rolling out... Wave after wave: We step into the shallow end to see what love was like.

We followed fifteenth foot long white lines to the sunset. I could not see the headlights coming so I pushed the seat back a little further. You rolled the windows down, to take a breath, staring at the setting sun; finding every reason to come back again. We did not stand a chance in this threadbare time...

I wish I could have seen the headlights coming: they paint the world in red and broken glass.

Now you're nothing but grains of sand.

... I remember the twilight world in blue, red, and white. The needles and the damage done. In slow motion I watched a splintered piece of glass as falls into the seat and gets caught.

****. **** .

I visited your grave Saturday morning. The skyline unfolded into explanation :Death down there shines more brightly than life up here. Death therefore is the answer. The answer to calculations composed of motions that are the same.

Standing here waiting..... (I don't want to feel this way forever: a dead letter marked return to sender.)

I hear the ocean breathing in a sigh. Somewhere the seagulls, are screaming overhead--- Echoes in the distance with the sound of your voice [ Nothing has ever seemed so far away.Wave after wave it is calling me.]--- just out of site. I look up to try to find them and I see the sun. It looks like the sun that melted away slowly in your eyes as you fell into the dirty water. Time after Time.

The silent line of sky-lit eyes show the crack in the porcelain. The crys open up to reveal the words inside....

Try and live.

_____________________

I left the cliff-side gravestone. I look at the the broken watch you gave me which has turns into a compass: it's two hands still point to the same time---12:03--- of our last goodbye. So I push the seat back a little further....

......Broken windows: reminders of the youth we lost. Time no longer runs through our veins. I tried so hard to look away from you.... Staring at the setting sun; finding no reason to go back again. Time to let this pass.

I crash my car everyday. Just not the same way.

The spinning hubcaps set the tempo for the music of a broken window

... I remember you.... I recall it all...

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