LatinosUSA

I ran into her the other day,
she had on dark sunglasses.
Tears fell from behind them
as she told me
she needed help
and asked me
about where
I go to counseling.

Embalming fragrance
covered my memory,
but it couldn’t keep
the horrors flashing back.
I want to talk to her —

I remember being in the back seat,
while your friend or roommate,
whatever he was,
drove you around to calls.
We’d get out.
I lay in the grass
of a gas station I don’t remember,
and hit my pipe,
waving the lighter, flickering —
eternal inhalation —
the flame heating
the white rocks,
vaporizing
them inside the glass.

I sucked it all in
and held my breath,
like if I let go
and exhaled,
the gates of hell
would open.
Fragments of my soul
littered the grass
next to
that gas station parking lot.
While I laid in the grass,
you perhaps laid in a bed
or stood against a wall,
in a room of a hotel
next to the gas station,
men sucking you in
like crack smoke.

The stars —
pinpoints of light
in the sky —
glimmered on.