Brooklyn

I went there to die.

The weather was the kind of cold that goes under your jacket,

Through your skin, and into your bones.

It freezes you from the inside out.

I was a walking corpse just waiting for a place to lie down

And sleep forever.

He was the kind of man, who no longer had a soul,

As if the person he once was had been devoured

By demons and all that was left was a shell of a human being.

He took everything he could from me,

He tried to devour me like he was devoured,

He reached inside of me and pulled out my heart,

A fleshy beating mass

And drained it of its fluids

Giving me back something deflated and dead

As a replacement.

I can remember being dragged down a hallway

And into a room

“No” was not a word he understood

I remember his friend and a young women

(With skin like dark silk and beautiful slanted eyes)

I try not to think about the rest of it

Sometimes it comes back to haunt me

Like an old hungry ghost

      Memories of flesh and drugs

      The scent of fear and sweat

These men were not human

(or maybe to human)

I remember how the days didn’t make any sense

I remember finally leavening the apartment

And picking up a payphone

I called George,

      “where are you?”

      “I don’t know”

      “come home...”

      “I cant.”