Stranded, sitting by the railroad tracks for hours now. Sprawled on a sloping hill, and watching the sun melt. I've been pining for her, and questioning what I'd have done differently. Draped in shards of twilight; the moon braves its ascent into the night sky. Surveying the moon I see Jane's face. She's the only one who ever gave a damn about me, and man did I love her more than life. She didn't give a shit that I didn't have a job, and my life was hanging by loose threads. I really screwed the pooch though.

7/3/24

Bunny Villaire

Her name is Janky

She is a middle school kid that lives with her grandmother.

Janky wears her favorite pink shirt when she hangs with her friends.

She wears light blue Levi jeans with the knees out. She wears blue converse sneakers and a blue Yankees hat with a ponytail hanging out back. She hangs with one other girl and three boys. Yes, she's a tomboy.

The name Janky came from her auntie. When she was small, people would try to pick her up, she would rudely jank back. Thus, leaving her with the name Janky.

Her quivering fingers extend themselves limply toward the gray pencil. Flashes of quaking memories flood her brain. She inhales and shuts her eyes. She can do this. The soul weighing down her stomach and pinning it to inaction cries out, "I do not want to. I do not care." She exhales slowly. She does care. She only needs to try. Her eyes open with aching resolve. One more inch… Her fingers feebly caress the gray pencil as the touch of the cold wood scathes her skin. "I hate you," her stomach mumbles. She takes another painful breath. Now to write…

She wears a Def Leppard tee with a hole the size of a quarter along the collar seam. Black has faded to a dusky gray.

Dark blonde hair is slicked into a ponytail, held by an acid-washed denim headband. Bangs are an arched, moussed sentinel over her forehead. Ripped jeans, matching the headband, are tight rolled into her Reebok high tops.

She carries a purple Trapper Keeper covered in our initials done in whiteout and black sharpie.

She's as far away from me today as we were from Nagasaki then.

Some images burn into concrete while others etch into memory.

Sunny is an average bloke; lanky and athletic.

He dresses to attend a party, or a funeral, at the shortest notice.

His enthusiasm exudes through every idea he shares.

His personality is magnetic to the girls but often it's him who loses the polarity and the attraction detaches.

He cheers for the underdog and is a "Robin Hood" for a lot of people around the neighbourhood.

His friends range from the petty hustler who sells movie tickets in "black" outside cinema halls to the shoe-shine boy at the dusty corner of the street.

Sunny is true to his name.

She was a different sort. She had blonde hair and the bluest eyes you ever saw. When you looked into her eyes, you would melt. She had a different way about her that made some swoon. She wasn't for everyone, she knew in her heart, she only wanted those she could call her own to come to her. When she opened her mouth to speak, her voice sounded melodious like a bell. When she thoughtfully touched her hair, it would make you smile, blush, or feel your own. Her lips were a crimson pink, and she wore a soft perfume.

Dakota works at the fried chicken place, and lives with her parents and ferrets. She keeps cheap liquor on her bookshelf for medicinal purposes only. She crochets. Her friends at the 24 hour gym all have a crush on her. Her arms zigzagged with scars, she claims she is too old for that business now. She goes to church on the Sundays she doesn’t work, hugging the old church ladies who dote on her. She laughs violently, falling out of her chair at one of her own jokes. Dakota only happens to mortals like us once in a strawberry moon.

A 6'2 dude who wears head phones to every outfit in his wardrobe. A tan skin was his dream, but he was born fair and stayed fair. His hair was a messy, especially every time he came from the barber's. He has long legs, fitting if he played basketball or such sports, but the bloodline he took after chose the arduous life with poems.

Yes. Poems.

He wrote poems while his headphones played the rappiest of songs and he danced to classicals all day long. And that is his secret.

His social circle, you ask? Why, everyone asks "Arnold who?"

She lives in the woods, a stranger to the passing of time. If you were to come upon her, you would say she is nine. In reality a thousand years have gone. Though she saw the fall of kingdoms and witnessed the rise of strife, her favorite pass time is talking to spirits, petting her dog and sitting in the twilight.

She loves to grow her graden. Her favorite tea is chamomile. Her eyes are black as soot. But to see into them would be to see the truest soul. Half alive, half dead she is everything and more.