“I don’t really know what’s left

for me,” he said bitterly.

                “Yeah you do, you’re going to

go home, you’re going to get some sleep,

you’re going to make it through this,”

I said putting my arm around him.

                He fell to his knees. He always

seemed tense, like he was walking

under more pressure than the rest of us.

This collapse wasn’t drug induced,

though he was on drugs. It was

too much, his mind and his body

and his legs couldn’t hold the pressure.

We were in a dark alley,

a shortcut to my house. He was leaning

against a building.

                “Adam, get up.” I put my hand

underneath his armpit and tried to encourage

him to his feet. He tried to get

his placement but fell onto the sidewalk

sobbing. I could feel it

starting to eat away at me.

These lives we lived, is this

what our parents did? Spiral in multiple

directions, basking up other people’s lives?

It was like we were

all put on this hill to keep falling down.

                Start taking more and more,

                wounds trying to keep the wounds

                from bleeding out.

                His hands were shaking in front

of his face. I sat him up so he was

sitting on the curb, his back against

the building. He kept his hands to his chin

for a minute as if he forgot who he was with

then slowly pulled his hands away,

putting down the barrier men like us

tried to put up to block out

the rest of the world. As if we

weren’t real people, we tried to block

the hurt like we were never really

hurt but everything we did

was to block the hurt we felt.

I sat there with him

taking the flask from my jacket

and chugging the rest

of the whiskey down. I lit a boge

and passed it to him, lighting another for myself.

                “Fuck ‘em,” I said bitterly.

                “Huh?” he asked.

                “Fuck them all,” I said with hatred.

                For he understood what I meant

and we sat there in silence isolation and hate

but we sat together which is what

kept us swinging from our feet

gasping struggling and fighting for our next breath.