go_between raze she used to write poetry. she never said why she stopped. i gave her an empty rust-coloured hardback book. i thought it might help. sometimes i'd be playing with her cat, or i would say some random thing, and she would look at me and smile this little secret smile and say, "you're gonna make me start writing again." but the only poems she ever let me read were written before i knew her. she was my go-between. i always gave her enough money so we could each get a gram of coke. it came in this tiny air-sealed bag. i wondered how something so small could be so dangerous. it looked like snow that never melted. she showed me how to snort it. she said the easiest way was to take a plastic straw and cut it down to the length of half a finger. she loved the drip. she loved when she could taste it kissing the back of her throat. she used to be a dealer, but all the money she made went up her nose, and what she didn't snort her girlfriend did. when she held her in bed she could feel all the bones in her back. her fingers loved her long enough to remember every ridge and hollow of her spine, but her tongue couldn't tap the roof of her mouth long enough to say her name. i could almost see the face of someone i'd never met, who was probably already dead, just from thinking about the way her skinny body felt in someone else's arms. i can still almost see her. like the ghost of someone else's dream. she tried to talk me into getting high with her before we went downtown. "i want to see you fucked up," she said. i don't know why i didn't give in. i wanted to. something in my gut said not to do it, and for once i listened. you hear people talk about coke being a social drug. i only did it alone in my room. it was better that way. i didn't have to talk to anyone. i tried writing one night after a line or two. nothing came out except for this: if i'm unwanted, then you're a hearse driving my carcass around the town. i won't sleep, but i'll dream a while. it turned into a song, but it took a long time to get there. there was this lonely little melody at the end when the music broke apart. i kept singing, "i need all the love you've got." it wasn't written down. it just came out. i erased my voice so i wouldn't have to hear those words again, and all the dopamine receptors in my brain lit up with the clearest answer to any question i'd ever asked. i used to think if i could wish for just one thing, it would be to read what she wrote in the book i gave her. to see what she saw. to know what happened. to understand why. but there wouldn't have been anything for me to read on any of those pages. that terminal winter took all her words away. 211126 ... unhinged (being a child of the 80s american i spent time in my formative years in 'just say no' classes so i had a list of drugs i would just say no to if i ever found myself peer_pressured coke is still the only drug on that list that i have never tried my friends became ugly on coke and my heart already raced and flitted all on its own) i ended up paying $20k in someone else's debt because i stuck my nose where it didn't belong and cosigned loans i shouldn't have i closed my eyes thinking i would never open them again but_then seconds passed like years i was pushing the door frame against the crumpled wheel well wandering on the highway in a blizzard feeling the snowflakes like mini ice pellets melting on my cheeks when all of a sudden a man's voice kick started my hearing connected to the body standing in front of me asking me something then i realized i was standing on the highway in the middle of a blizzard after hitting two semi trucks, hitting the back tires of the truck on the left the ice causing us to hit the tire like a bumper car and then also flung us around until we got in a headon collision with the semi on the right but i was standing on the highway in the middle of a blizzard 'are you ok?' i finally heard the man asking i nodded still in shock listening for the fluttering of angel wings that had to still be close 211126 what's it to you? who go blather from