D4 ♫ { Julien Baptiste } ♫ DONE

c l o s e ♫ e n o u g h ♫ t o ♫ b e
appearance

If I was someone entirely unlike myself, would you still have loved me?

If my skin was a single shade lighter than the post-mortum eggshell it is would you still deem it worthy of your stinging kiss, the phantom of its stabbing burn still haunting my neck years after you last left? If my eyes weren't such a cheap imitation of the evening sky to compliment the flawless blue summer's day you held captive within your own, would you still think it worth it to fill your memory within them? Within these eyes who wished to see a lifetime with nothing but your every smile and lash filling them at every waking moment? Within these eyes who have yet to cease searching for you in every dimly liten bar and cafe despite knowing you've become nothing more than housing for maggots and a stone name in a sea of many?

If these hands weren't big enough to swallow the entirety of your own whole, would your fingers still itch to trace invisible epics into the collarbones and chests of another? Did you choose me from the others by chance? Or did you simply like the way your head fit like a key handcrafted by a being greater than the both of us to fit into the crook of my neck? Or perhaps the carefully timed ticking of the coronary timepiece I hid beneath a brand new rib cage and a secondhand leather jacket spoke more to you than any acoustic ballad ever could. At seventeen some maker or craftsmen with a penchant for aesthetics stretched my bones and face and broadened my shoulders almost entirely overnight, leaving me to stiffly shuffle and skip with hinges and railing I was still shocked to find as my own. Did the inelegance of youth seem too appetizing to resist, in all its hunched and fumbling glory, or was it the taboo of your chase that seasoned me to your liking?

Because its thoughts like these that leak into my room at night and agonize me with their company when I so dearly wish to be terrorized by you.

t h o u g h t ♫ I ♫ s a w ♫ y o u
personality

I thought I could be your

Hero on a stallion to save you from breaking your own

Heart in my chest that beat far too fast for me to

Keep up with the song, on the dance floor I stepped on your

Feet and miles and worlds between us, I swallowed

"the whole story", you said. "Tell me 'bout your

Hiding place, secret space, each dimple of your lovely

Face the sun, not even turning away when our cheeks began to

Burned so many cigarettes into the night I

Lost my mind with you standing by me in the dim

Light eyes and dark hair I always told you you never needed that

Make up two nights after every night we'd

Break up everything I owned in two because I knew it would be better shared with

You loved it when I played songs on the piano and hit the

Keys to my apartment I was constantly

Losing battles but winning you was such a lovely way to

Live performances by amateur bands in the

Parked my motorbike too close to a red curb and got a

Pair of tickets for you and me to spend a weekend at a bed and

Breakfast hot on the stove as I waited for you to

Wake of destruction, you'd beat my chest when you were

Mad and I'd laugh and tell you you were

Mad and you'd become even more

Mad but I'd kiss your eyelids and you'd call me a goddamn

Asshole cut us off on the road so we followed him for sixteen

Songs on the radio with chord progressions so predictable until

He pulled over and kicked my ass to the

Moon was crescent like your big ass smile that was far too

Big and bloody gashes on my arms and cheeks and

Mouthfuls of cough syrup even when I told you that medicine couldn't heal a broken

Egos too terrible to come in

Twos, and threes, and fours because we had enough arrogance for

Everybody said our young love could never

Last time we laughed hand in

Hands to keep

Warm our throats with scarlet kisses and coffee black like the

Mascara rivers running down your cheeks when you

First things first, I told you I'd never

Waltz to a dead man's song or get my hair

Damp hands in yours when we glided across the ballroom, you in my jacket because you got

Cold rain pounding down on our heads as I kissed you in a

Storm or shine, you said you'd never break my

Heart but you

lied down on the carpet like you always did, arms stretched out to

words.

Two words.

She's gone.

And just like that, I was gone too.

s c e n t ♫ o n ♫ t h e ♫ s e a t b e l t
history

"How old are you?" she asked, lips lush with a poison red that I wish I could have known to read as a stoplight, as a warning signal that I was fumbling into waters where sirens sing and sailors sleep. But she had all the weapons of destruction I was all too eager to have come and pillage my walls. She had the curves of a skilled pitcher and the swagger of an exotic queen I had an homage that all but begged to be given up. Against the glazed counter, her arms pressed on either side of me as if I had an desire to escape. And her heels like bayonets --just as long, just as fatal-- sang a reckless click! click! click! to the dow dow dow of the bass and the thud! thud! thud! of the traitorous bird enslaved in my ballroom bones desperately screaming

I love you so.

"Twenty-seven," she mocked me, laughing the sweetest concertina angels ever did compose, taking another drag on a cigarette and shrouding me in her smoky haze. We laid there, in a den of sheets that was neither mine nor hers, tuned to the tune of an acidic white that encased her in a chemical forged halo. The gawk of youth and inexperience left me to fumble aimlessly until she gave me the saving grace of taking my wrists and guiding our way into Eden. "Seventeen's just fine with me," she said, raking my skin tender with acrylic talons and lacquered lips. She laid her head against my chest and laughed at the pathetic confessions I couldn't silence, the blush of my skin beneath her scorched a pansy pink to her touch. She was fifteen years my senior. Not that it crossed my mind for a moment after she said it. I was far too preoccupied with sealing my mouth with hers, not trusting my free lips to bite down on what little sense I had left and stop myself from singing in my sleep,

I love you so.

The candle was half burnt out when I blew out the flame. I picked up my own china dish and looked at the distorted imitation of myself in its pearl reflection; the black treacle trenches dug about my eyes should've warned me of the oncoming blitz, but instead I read them as lullings to sleep. She hadn't called at all to say she couldn't make it and I, exhausted and clearing the overcooked dinner I prepared for two, was more than excited to finally have artillery for a battle I could win. But not really. But I would've traded an atmosphere seasoned with her ornery opinions and cigarette smoke over a single won argument any day. Because when I phoned to see if she was fine I wanted more than the ingenuine recitation of "Hello, this is Violet. Sorry I'm not here at the moment, but please leave a message. Hope to you soon...". Because my bed was far too big for one. Because I never knew how hard the cold could bite until she showed me what it truly felt to be warm. Because I didn't allow my eyes, dried and set in tar pits of exhaustion, to close until the soot stained sky broke itself into the yoke of morning, hoping she'd dash through my front door safe. Because I never thought I'd care about anything more than my first Les Paul until I put on my jacket and called out her name in every dark street until it went out of style. Because that was the night, over accidentally roasted pasta and an old blues album she lent me the weekend before, I wanted to tell her how

I love you so.

A week later she was in the Obituary. Just bleeding ink scratched unto a fifty cent newspaper. Not a picture, but bleeding ink. All she amounted to in life were a few pressed words crammed in between an advertisement for dry cleaners and exotic parrots. "Violet Narcissa Troian July 1 - December 7 Violet passed peacefully at the Bennet Medical Care Center Friday night after severe internal hemorrhage as a result of a car crash six hours prior. Neither her husband, Terence Troian, or the other unnamed driver survived the devastation..."

How could you do this to me?

I love you so.

They were getting buried together. Violet and her husband. I crashed the funeral to see an artist's interpretation of Violet I had never seen before. Her hair was pressed tight against her head with silver pins and she was completely lacking in the familiar leopard prints and knee socks, instead opting for a lace and silk version of my smoking gun I never knew. And I wanted to take her, her hand in mine ice cold and unfeeling, completely unlike the hands that laced spice into my skin the very first night we met. I wanted to rob her out of her casket and let down her hair and send her away from this world the way I knew in my damn sobbing heart she wanted to be. I wanted to crush the frail hand I took into my own, anger braising my blood to hazardous heats. I was furious. Hateful. Angry at myself for being the ignorant child who fell so easily into Violet's game of hearts, without suspecting for so much as a second that before we began there was already an unhappy end. Angry at Terence, as faceless and blameless as he may have been resting on his satin bed, for getting to lie beside her every night I would spent cold and alone. I hated Violet. I hated Violet for having met me. I hated Violet for having met me and having loved me. I hated Violet for having met me and having loved me when I loved her so. I hated Violet for having met me and having loved me when I loved her so and still deciding I wasn't the one she wanted to rest for the rest of eternity beside. But I told her. I told her before her entire bawling family and husband by her side and through the dirtiest curses and most spiteful names I could think of calling her as two men had to forcibly escort me out I screamed for her to hear from heaven above or hell below

I love you so.

I forgot her face. Two years and I fucking forgot her face. Two years and I don't even have a picture to remember my first kiss, my first held hand, my first heartbreak, my first honest adversary. My first funeral, my first love. I remember how pillowy her lips were, and how they enveloped me, filled me with their touch and deafened me with their words. I remember how warm she was, constantly. Her laugh, her hands, her toes, her neck, her hot breath when she whispered secrets in booths and back corners of gigs. I remember constantly calling her phone until they cut the line, just to hear her voice. "Hello," Hey. "...this is Violet. Sorry I'm not here at the moment..." Violet I miss you so much. "...but please leave a message..." I don't care to move on without you. "Hope to see you soon..."

I love you so.

"It sounds too much like a pop song," she said, nonchalantly flickering through old reggae albums I kept in a apple crate on the ground, leaning against my leg. I put my guitar aside and slid down next to her, folding my arms around her into their instinctive slots, the curves of her frame that accepted me like puzzles pieces. "I think it is a pop song," I said, kissing her on the cheek and looking over her shoulder at the album in her hand. "I'm happy, sorry if my music is too." I added dryly, rocking her back and forth until she hit me on the head with the record. "And just what do you have to be oh-so happy for?" she asked, batting her eyes in the most feigned of oblivious innocence. And I looked at her, as goddamn gorgeous as she was the first night I saw her and everyday since. Tell her now. Tell her now. You don't need fancy plans or plots. Tell her now. The perfect time to tell her is the time you tell her. Tell her now. It's easy. Just get out the first word and the rest is sure to follow.

I love you so.