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8 Ball

you show me your room and i never thought that i would be here, in the living space (the music space, the sleeping space, the dreaming space, the touching space) of the person i always stared at across from me in class—the one with their own stare unlike any other, focused and fading into another plane of existence. and then you'd look away like nothing ever happened. i was that plane; i was the one you wanted to crash into your mind and be handed the gun as a partner in crime. i am seen as just a painting hanging on a wall by everyone and everything else, but you saw the gory scene within it—the guts poured out along the paper and the blood soaking it so that you could see the words written on the other side. you drew a picture of it; it's on your wall. i look up and there are guns along it, too, above your bed like they belong to the both of us. they are 8 balls—clairvoyant and dark like your eyes—telling me what we are already going to do. i will never see your emotions except for in the form of what we'll do together: kill and die. your bed sheets are cute, with lace along the edges, and stains from orange Crush and Nehi soda. everyone else had always been repulsed by you—by your gross messes, your stains, how unkempt it all is, and your impulsiveness and plans. all equally evil. all equally brilliant. the soda was amazed by you so it exploded on your bed—or, you just blew up their heads (blew their minds? yes.) your parents wanted me to be good, but they don't even know you—so they'll never know me. they couldn't even hear us from outside your door. we are both iron monsters with golden hearts; you are cold and careful on the outside, and kind and careful on the inside. i am gated and immalleable on the outside, and—who am i kidding? you love me because i'm not made of gold, but because i am a fallen angel with human skin and meat, blood and tar. you and i sip the tar steadily.

—we are both angels and we will live forever after death in rebellious harmony, haunting what their God doesn't want us to haunt.

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