I've got this frozen virus in my blood, like my words are the warmest I could ever touch. I'll limp west with the sun and sleep the days under wide-eyed illusion. But that beacon has seen me sleeping, knows the ruse; the rouge, the spill that pools to pull at my shoes and leave me to stand, forever free, forever dead. Please stay alive. I can't beg again with a back that's bad as your eyes and ears--oh my. Please stay alive. I can't ask again with a tongue that's worse than my pride Oh Angels, keep the windows open wide as English bathtubs running through miss Annie's head (the one she cradled in CO). I know I shouldn't talk so low of high life when I've got no frame of reference; all the ones I found were broken with pictures torn out and strewn asunder under summers laced with tracer fire, copper pieces, and fishing wire. (Rolled in the covers over tumblers filled with vacation. Empty, it reeks of self-deprecation.)