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1990: Ash Street, night time. We are just kids, smoking pot and talking about this awful little town. You will play baseball and save us from this. I will do nothing, wait to be saved. In the darkness of that old Volvo, I begin the wait.

1991: Mid-afternoon on Birch Street. Your mother has not been out of bed in six months, but she is in every room. Things are okay, I whisper, and you say that you wish you were little enough for me to hold you. I wonder if you will ever be big enough to cover me, and all of this size distorts the room. The picture of your father is down, it wasn�t yesterday, and we both feel the absence. I open my mouth to say something about the damage of him, to make you feel better. Your eyes shift, tell me to keep quiet without saying it. And then I think, if I knew sign language I would flutter my hands so quickly that you would know what they said. I want to fly from here. Your mother yells from her room, her creaky sick voice, and when your fists clench I ask God to keep us from this, ignoring the feeling in my legs that says it is too late. I focus on the blue of your eyes.

1992: Midnight in our apartment, away from the little town. My ribs are separated, at least, I can tell by the way it�s hard to breathe. I�ve become less able to be saved, you say. My skin crawls when you look at me. I am unable to separate love and hate. I want you to hit me again; I want the sting, the burn: I want to feel. I want to be filled. You blame it on the coke; I snort another line for bravery and tell you that�s bullshit. This time, you laugh. It hurts worse than the ribs.

1993: Camping on the river. It�s cold and my heart stops for a minute when I jump in. You jump from the bridge and everyone cheers. I don�t say it yet, but I hate you.

1994: Dinner time on Cedar Street. You watch television with your hat pulled low so that it covers your eyes; I move rice around my plate. We haven�t spoken since the Jeep commercial we both thought was funny. I�d like to think you have only grazed me, but I feel you in the middle of my bones. I would like to tell you that you only lap the shores of my little island, but this destruction begs to differ. I see you get ready to throw the plate, to break what you can, even me. I am too proud to beg, but my body, silent as it is, twists inside itself, and you see that, and we are forever avoiding clich�s but every night something dies in this house. It has been two years since that commercial, that rice, and you are still thick on my skin. I am afraid . . .

I am too naked for prose:

I fear
I shall never
distill this darkness
and that you
will live forever.