On Tequila.
Salt, shot, lime. That nameless thing living under your skin is growing wings. Tongue, throat, teeth. It takes flight and leaves your stomach empty. Need, want, hunger. You take your arms and wrap them around yourself. It is your best imitation of the best man you know, but it still falls short. Your hands barely cross the hill of your shoulder blade, the valley of your spine. Don't cry just yet. Outside, the creatures of the night are howling at anything that will listen. They stumble over spitefully uneven pavement and knock out their canines until the world is upside down. The sidewalk is a sea of ivory stars. Make a wish. You wish for longer arms. It doesn't come true. You should have wished for smaller hills and valleys. Don't you want to be easier to hold? Salt, shot, lime. Inside, everybody is kicking up a fuss, kicking up dirt and dust. You smudge your eye-liner getting it out, then stub your toe against a bar stool. Flip a coin to decide which is the greatest tragedy of the night. You drop the coin and it's lost amongst all the other lost things. You'll never know, now. Not that it matters, you can hardly think when the bass is a second heart inside your ribcage. The third is a bird, both prodigal and returned. Flesh, drum, feathers. If your blood were blue, you would be an octopus. Your arms would be long and many. So what colour is it? You want to find out in a back alley, bleeding out in the arms of the best man you know. Viscous and sweet, the wine of his life. The third and greatest tragedy of the night is that he puts pressure on the wound instead of kissing you. Smoke, bruise, bandages. You should have asked for your worst man, he'd have played the scene right. Instead, all your want is melting together into a hole-shaped soup. By the way, your blood is red. Salt, shot, lime.