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201~1IFALL

BY KAILEY RHONE

I've seen you before: bleary-eyed and crooked in your seat
Always one beat behind and one joke ahead
The time of our lives is when there's no time at all
To sleep, to dream
Pills feel like notes uncurling in your stomach, telling
You the fun starts when your breath stops.
No more thinking then.
No directing your lungs to inhale, exhale.
Nothing to remember then.
Alcohol takes a journey down your throat, a warm walk
On a May night, finals approaching.
Do you wish you could drop it all now?
Let's get fucked up, because it's better to fall apart
Than to hide the hair line cracks of the exterior.
We all blend anyhow, a pile of broken china dolls
Taken off our parents' shelf.
When I hear the animal cries of another hunt, another
safari through the jungle of youth, breaking
the silence outside my window,
I'll lay my head down to the printed words of philosophers generations gone,
And know I've heard it before; a prayer from the non-believers to
a god who promised mercy.