To Love a Gangster

To be Ashore

You felt the sheets beneath your fingertips to confirm your whereabouts. Your chest violently ricocheted repeatedly against your ribs, seeking anything to grab hold of in order to calm your racing thoughts, yet your tears threatening to come left you stranded astray in your blindness.

Glancing at the clock that sat on the nightstand, the neon green letters glowed a harsh read of 3:21AM.

There was no way that you would meet sleep again for the remainder of the night, not after the walk through the wormhole you had pleaded God to never make you set foot in alone again.

Needing to escape the bed's haunting grip, you stifled a strangling sob as you rose from the covers, all of what remained in you fighting hard to still remain collected.

Emerging from the guest bedroom door, you dared to set foot in the pitch-black common area only illuminated with the glow of the neon signs mounted against the walls above your head.

The vibrant signs provided a mild hum of buzzes that silenced your footsteps and sniffles which warned mores tears threatening to come.

You wanted to do everything in your power to refrain that from happening, and by god, if Shorter saw you even shed just one more droplet, it would be the end of your life.

You found yourself walking into the kitchen, reaching for a glass that sat near the sink in hopes that water from the tap would calm your emotions.

The volume of the buzzing from the neon signs had seemed that they were being turned up notch by notch. Your pacing of your breaths quickened as you felt for the faucet, sensing your water levels behind your eyes beginning to rise.

Tik tik tik the sounds of Frederick's old clock chimed from the old barren walls that had a story to tell.

Shut up, shut up, you pleaded desperately as you quietly ran the tap.

The sounds of the buzzing had now grown into an excruciating volume enough to where they now were at war with your throbbing head.

The faces of the coyotes that took everything from you flashed images of glaring red before your eyes.

Stop, just please stop!

You bit your tongue as you placed your glass under the running water to keep grasping on to your sanity.

The empty eyes that played the rest of this tragedy scanning every bare portion while his cold stare confined you from hiding.

His silent words with his lips clearly spelling out,

"You're right."

You retrieved your glass with a trembling hand, dangerously close to letting it escape from your grasp.

One sip, that's all it'll take.

"You're not worthy."

You brought the glass to your quivering lips, readying the liquid to act as your anguished medicine to take it all away.

Watching him lick your blood clean off his blade as he admired his own masterpiece painted in crimson while you blacked out in the very place you met him. Swiping your whole life away with the end of his blade so that you would fall right into his act for your death certificate.

Melt away, damn it!

You blindly gulped down a furious swig out of your panic between flooding eyes, only for you to drown in your own swallow as the lukewarm water swarmed its way down the wrong pipe.

A series of harsh hics desperate for air erupted into the darkness as you grasped desperately onto the sink, losing all ability for self-control as you stumbled around for your right to breathe. Tears swarmed in your eyes as you struggled under the undertow, eventually letting the glass slip through your fingers as it shattered at your feet.