To Dine in Hell

The forrest is devoid of all sound but the beat of a heart. The heart is distant from your solitary footing in the bush. You are waiting. Within seconds a face familiar asks very specific questions in rapid succession. Each one a piercing idea that flashes and burns like sparklers on the Fourth of July.

We smoke. I remember the way they days would extend. I would think of God. Time slips away and revolves around itself in my beer. Her eyes were green. She sees the ocean in my nightmares. We dance and drink sandy Corona's to reggae thick and heavy. She remembers to, the same way I do.

A branch is broken a foot behind you and you are catapulted forward. The force takes your glasses and your left ear. You stay suspended between a large stone and tree limb. The stone reshaping three of your ribs. You are happy to be alive. It's not like you know how you got there. You never will. The trip always ends this way.

The blood thickened onto your shirt in the shape of Angola. You smell yams and corn meal porrage being prepared in the fresh morning mist. Children are playing. A woman violently resets a broken leg to the best of her abilities. It heals the next day. Her face reminds you the same face that questioned you earlier.

The flight was long. Africa had never so far away before. New York is uninviting. I pray for deliverances. The phone rings and Sarah's voice sounds like red wine. "You back? I knew it, I'm already on my way."

My apartment got smaller. We drink and talk about my mother. "She left last night. She was fucked up Leo. She kept sayin' she was gonna find you and fuck you up to." The beer is warm. Lil' Wayne is making something rain on BET. Black people spending money.

The cocaine makes you sleepy now. Tonight was the last time until she called. "Lee-Lee it's Sarah. I fucked Sergio I'm sorry. You knew it was gonna happen. I'm outside, lemme in. I promise I just want to talk." This time she meant business and had the look a child does when they've learned a new trick. She passed out after tootin' and I realized the bag I blew was'nt coke at all.

The cop kept saying "You stupid little shit, you are going to jail." Sarah had died on my couch, with me in the bathroom. I was shaving my head for the third time. It never gets just right.

"You're going to prison you dumb shit. You ever had your shit pushed in boy?"

"Where'd you get that from, is that from a movie? Are you Denzel Washington?"

I was still fucked up from that mystery bag. The weight of the situation was felt in the hospital. Sarah was dead. I was in jail. All I could think of was that branch, and the exact distance between my nose and the mouth of the Great Euphrates.