You did not err.
I did: my ear
twisting fact into farce,
deaf, defying, denying.

The threshold surpassed,
I, a mere mirage, collapse.

You shouldn’t be here.
False intoxicated cool;
foolish bravado moved your feet
in their too-small boots,
your hot pink safety net torn to shreds.
The present is restless:
a life and your death
the sum of history and butterfly wings.

There’s an audible click,
the gun, the solution
  and a long cry
    and the big bang.
      Consciousness gained in repose;
a masterpiece animated
  for me
    alone.

In your wake,
  I mend.

hush, little baby.

select your
prey and sell yourself.
leave out the fine print.
lie to lie.

your bed a crude, punctured lung
swelling and collapsing with ours

coughlike your breath jerks through
your throat to clatter
from your slack jaw

your slovenly claws graze tender thigh
flesh in a mockery
of ravenous brutal rending

your right arm
gravity, the undertow,
around me like a life belt you constrict.

I wring salt water from your lungs.

BECCA, DAN and EWAN, all early- to mid-20s.

*

[SCENE]
[BECCA is at a house party with DAN. They sit cross-legged on the floor; the party swirls around them. A young man (JORDAN) sinks to the floor next to DAN.]

JORDAN: You have the—? [touches nose]

DAN: Mm-hmm! [searches in knapsack beside him]

JORDAN: [fishing in pocket] I texted you earlier…

DAN: [without looking up] Yeah, I remember. Becca, Jordan; Jordan, Becca.

BECCA: [smiles shyly and raises hand in demure greeting]

JORDAN: [sorting through a small wad of bills he's pulled from his pocket] Hey.

[DAN passes JORDAN a match box with a bit of plastic wrap sticking out. JORDAN peels a few bills from the wad. DAN spots the amount he's counted out and interrupts—]

DAN: Just give me two twenties. I’ll give you five back.

JORDAN: Thanks, man.

[They exchange money.]

JORDAN: [tucking box into pocket] So… what are you guys, then? Like, she’s your girlfriend, or—?

[BECCA and DAN lock eyes, both looking perplexed and amused]

DAN: Um.

BECCA: [looks to JORDAN] We’re… involved? I guess?

DAN: [smiling, looking into BECCA's eyes] We know where we stand.

BECCA: [smiles]

*

[SCENE]
[BECCA and EWAN are watching television in his room. She is sitting cross-legged on the bed. He is lying behind her, a hand on her leg.]

[From other side of bedroom door, sounds of PARENTS entering house]

EWAN: My parents have been wanting to meet you.

BECCA: [nervously] Right now?

EWAN: If you want.

BECCA: No, if you want; I don’t care.

EWAN: How should I introduce you?

BECCA: You can call me whatever you want.

EWAN: [sourly] But it’s not like that.

BECCA: [sighs] Ewan—

EWAN: I know.

BECCA: Look, the only thing you’re missing out on by not being in a [finger quotes] “relationship” with me is that I resent you less.

EWAN: Why would you resent me?

*

[SCENE]
[DAN and BECCA are outside of a club. It's cold. DAN is smoking a cigarette. BECCA wears a neon toque. Loud music blares from inside.]

DAN: It kind of scared me when you sent me that message [pauses to exhale smoke] about going crazy thinking about me.

BECCA: Sorry.

DAN: It’s OK. I get it now.

BECCA: [kisses him] I’m glad you get it.

DAN: [smiles] I’m glad you get it too.

*

[SCENE]
[Return to BECCA and EWAN in his bedroom]

EWAN: Is it just, like, a label thing—?

BECCA: It’s not a “label thing.” I told you you can call me whatever you want. And it’s not that I’m afraid of setting down roots or having my heart broken or any of that other crap you’ve posited. I just don’t want to be… bogged down by expectations.

EWAN: [confusedly] What do you mean?

BECCA: It’s like…. Say it was just you and me. You’d want me to call you every x number of days, you’d want to hang out every x number of days. You’d always want to know what was wrong. If I disappeared for a couple of weeks I’d be accountable to you. I don’t want to just be half of something. [musing] I think I’m just hitting on this now.

EWAN: I get you.

BECCA: Do you?

*

[SCENE]
[BECCA and DAN lie fully clothed on his bed. BECCA's head is on his chest; DAN strokes her hair.]

BECCA: I have to break up with Ewan. This sucks. I really like him, but he wants to play house. I feel bad. I know I shouldn’t ’cause I was honest with him from the start, but he seems to have gotten his hopes up anyway and it’s probably my fault somehow—my ass writing checks my mouth can’t cash.

DAN: Don’t feel bad. You’re not responsible for his feelings.

*

[SCENE]
[Return to BECCA and EWAN in his bedroom]

EWAN: Honestly, is it because you like Dan better than me?

BECCA: I don’t like him better than you. I like him differently than you. He and I have been together longer. We’re in an entirely different stage of our relationship.

EWAN: Would you be in a relationship with him?

BECCA: Why do you ask me these things?

EWAN: I don’t know. I just want to know.

BECCA: I don’t think you do.

EWAN: Please? I want to understand.

BECCA: [sighs] All right. Truthfully, yes. I’m comfortable enough with him at this point that I would try, if that was something he wanted. But I don’t foresee it being something he’ll want anytime soon. And even then I wouldn’t want us to be monogamous.

EWAN: Can you see, though, how any guy would think it’s a little fucked that his girlfriend’s fucking other guys?

BECCA: It’s not about “fucking other guys.”

*

[SCENE]
[Day. BECCA and DAN in his bed after sex. DAN smokes a cigarette.]

BECCA: My shyness kind of turns me off girl-on-top. Which is weird, because I also have a thing for just being bent over random furniture and fucked doggy-style.

DAN: [mischievously] If you ever wear a skirt with no underwear, that’s what’ll happen.

BECCA: [makes exaggerated surprised face and kisses him] Mm, smoky-mouth.

*

[SCENE]
[Return to BECCA and EWAN in his bedroom]

BECCA: I call it “concurrent organic relationships.” The best cheesy comparison I’ve heard about it says, if you have a second child, you don’t love the first any less. Or… it’s like, if I had to eat just one food all the time, I’d get sick of it a lot faster.

EWAN: [shrugs] Makes sense. It all makes sense to me, Becca. I understand all this on a logical level, and I accept it all. I just can’t help but hope.

BECCA: Well, I’m not going to encourage that hope, but I do like you a lot.

EWAN: And you’re amazing.

BECCA: [snickers shyly] You’re—too kind.

EWAN: I still want to be with you however I can. I’ll just take whatever happens at face value and not mess with it.

BECCA: If you mean that… and you think you can manage it… I appreciate it so much that you’re even willing to try. I just want you to understand what this could mean for you.

EWAN: [defensively] I get it, OK? I mean it. I’ll be fine.

BECCA: [a bit dubiously] OK.

EWAN: But you know what I want, and it’s always on the table if you want it.

BECCA: [smiles sadly]

*

[SCENE]
[Night. BECCA and DAN in his bed after sex. They face one another, her head in his hands.]

BECCA: Maybe it’s the afterglow hormones talking… but I have stupidly strong feelings for you.

DAN: Mm? [kisses her] Good. [pauses] I like you a lot more than I expected to.

BECCA: [smiles]

*

[END]

your eyes forever closed,
opening ours to our now-
eternal blindness to you.
you can’t wake up.
we can’t wake up.

(my debt to you demands this.
my nature at these times is to
be small and silent.
my dreams humble, not grandiose.)

I knew you,
not well, but
in me more of you is built
than in those who stand
to gain from your departure,
to sing His praises
no matter who you were.

I cannot fit your years onto my page.
then, I will keep you secret in my boundless heart
till the lids of my dead eyes
and lifeless tomb are sealed.
but one moment, recurring—

your hand, weathered, withered,
long overworked, now laid to rest
on my young, lazy knee;
and in your sky-coloured eyes
the sparkle of your smile, the sun that’s now set.
“my girl,” you’d say, “you know I love you.”
you knew I loved you too.
you’ve lost everything;
I’ve lost you.

“I wonder”
I wonder
“how many times we
have kissed since yesterday.”

His laugh can
be startlingly
resonant from
his small frame.

“Like, seven”
he estimates
“thousand.”