Sunday, 1:23 a.m.
       Starting out the front door and into the street I pass three dead
birds in the gutter. The few that are still living sit above on the
telephone wires ignoring their dead brothers. Survival in this city
doesn't include crying over dead meat.
Besides, these birds will feed the dogs and cats and keep them away
from the kindergarten fence.
It's always a good sign when the gunshots stop by sunrise.

And on that note, I think I'll write a letter to you.

       I'll write it thinking of you lying there in your pathetic state
hospital bed. You should know your weeping mother heard the nurse. "It
happens all the time." Another over dose on a pretty face all sunken
and turned inside out. You'll be fine in a few days after you've come
down and they've fed you through the veins they took great pains to
find, and all the while you mumbled "just stick it anywhere". After
those few days they'll release you with a list of names oh so highly
recommended for a person such as you. But we'll disappear within
minutes and ride the black balloon, counting down our days before our
nights.

I wrote you this letter to tell you we can do better.
The cooks are blowing up their own houses and the junkies just cook in
the flames, paralyzed. The dealers don't care they're just draining
the blood. I remember when you called to say " I totally lost control,
I tore up the walls, ripped the photos from their frames," and all I
can do is write this letter to you.
       'We can rise on the wings of the dove' you once told me. Well that
morning dove got caught in the telephone wires so my hope is lost. I
wrote this letter for you and I know the words are all blurred but I
want you to know that when you're ready to run I'm ready to take you.
       That night watching you pulled leaves from the tress, it was like
talking to the other side of death. When I heard that voice from the
other room, I was still calling your name, hoping for something,
hoping for something…but our mourning dove got caught in the telephone
wire.
       I'll keep this letter for you, marked in an envelope with your new address.

See you on the other side of the glass.