White Lines

It's dark again. And not the kind of dark you look forward to- the familiar, eerie, foggy darkness that follows at your heels at your first year of college- when all you've been looking forward to is a drink on your own and your only way of getting it was by literally selling yourself. Without the lights, I can't see the white lines on my books. The lines that take me to heaven, crushed potions and poultices starting at forty dollars. I knew all the alleyways and stoplights. I was sailing across the ground at seventy on a rainy Sunday when I realized you missed me too. 

She was naturally cool. Pretty little body perched on the end of the black leather couch, cheap and from Indonesia. White lines on the armrest. Vacuum powered head swing backwards just to make sure it all went down the right pipe, she looked at me and smiled with some glittering fangs I had only otherwise seen in movies. She turned up the music. She took my hand giggling and led me to tango to her favorite song. Tripping over my feet almost as hard as I was tripping last week - was she tipsy? 

White lines. Double white lines meant do not cross. Singular was an invitation. Armand never told me anything about where he got it or what the handshake was like when he picked it up. He would simply play the shaman, but it wasn't good enough for me. I always kept my foot in the door for that possible freebie. Another white line, between rape and foreplay. I would giggle to her about it, and her black hair bounced when she laughed back. Playing the game my mother never taught me, I had to learn on my own. But I was my favorite teacher. 

"She thinks I'm insane, yeah, I might blow my brains out," I was thinking, in the back of the car. I was a risk since C died, with a G force motivation and a failing grade on the bottom shelf. Expiration date funeral, death was a language I spoke fluently in front of the right people. I was doing word gymnastics again and ignoring promises and text messages. But something about everything didn't matter, and I couldn't move past the green light I was sitting at. He hesitated to pass the blunt, he was too busy staring at my eyes. I don't like to let it burn too long. He didn't have white. What was he good for?