1: Buying heroin, or, as they say it, "hair-ron" from sugar-coffee-colored Puerto Rican youths. They prowled the street like jungle beasts knowing they were slowly going to the cage. Ready to strike first, because that's all they had to do for the night. Taking advantage of the thick New York City air like it was all they had to eat for the next week while they were in lockdown. The bars burn into their skin leaving marks...these boys did not have them yet. Fresh from the womb of the projects only a few blocks away. Huddled together throwing stares about the street, finding the next one that loved only them.

Pull your eyes together and find these boys, find them on the street corner of your town. In our town they were on Avenue D, and they held that corner, kids holding their corner of their playground. Lock into the other and walk...

We never bothered to shoot it, just tossed it straight down the hatch. Washed it down with gallons of Windex.

Light was green.

Hold my hand and let's you and me skip down the street.

2: A dark room tight around your back. With every flip, you are a minute closer to morning and the sun. A small room filled with the stink of something you could never have. Replace the organ with the smell with a real monster. A heart is what you could never have.

3: The morning sun was caught in our light well, and it filtered down through the beads and the curtains. It tried to get away. A fragile thing the moment of light every morning. This time we caught it. Full of cruelty, we pulled it in through the tiny opening in between the window and the air conditioner that had been on as long as I had been in that room.

Wet in our hands, we had speculated in the past that the sun would feel like splintery wood, sticking in our paws. We guessed we would have to wear gloves for days to hide our offense, so we bought as many as possible. Weeks were spent collecting box after box. Each box from a different location, to throw them off our trail. Struggling to bring the sun down, we knocked over the piles and fell to the ground in a wave of light and burning gloves.

Crying and screaming of promises he made to people to be places later that day, we beat the sun for all we were worth. The sun did not want anyone to know we had hit him. He just wanted to get away. Soaking through the sheets, his tears turned everything the shade of fresh urine. The tears had a flavor of lemon ice cream, and when you touched them they left you with the feeling of being slapped in the face, as you deserved it.

4: Floors shining like foreheads, I studied my reflection in them waiting for you. The grease on my hands worried me.

5: Betrayal was in you, and I never saw it for a minute. The blood in your veins was filled with a sickness that had been with you from birth. You replaced your cancer with AIDS. Good luck.