No more scribbling the loops in my name on yellowed ghosts decades gone, a half-dozen paper cuts will never heal. No more dreams encased in nightmares, copper in my ears, magnesium scalpels my scalp. No more half-written tales, one town over and 15 years later, suicide windows, when its said and done, and that sad, sad city with no second chances where a cop named St. Cyr drinks in a tavern called Uptown Jo's, served soda water over his shakes by a woman more defined than parts of his own daily existence. No more more. Is there Heaven? Is there a God in man's image and if so, will St. Peter punch me in my balls as I stand in front of graffiti-covered gates? Is this life a continuation of the Hell I lived until I died in 1959 along with George Reeves, Lou Costello, and the 99th victim of the Our Lady of Angels fire, serial killers Harvey Glatman and Charles Starkweather leaving just before that. I just want to keep my memories, is that so selfish and bad? I want to remember the bartender, the cop whose name means sincere, my hatred of snow, the glass in my bones. And my paper cuts will never heal, ever again.
