Robby

There was hope in their mouths that felt like
feathers between their teeth.

The death of a friend, never a lover, they joke
that he would liked to have been though.

She was beautiful and through the translation
of light, mirrors and smoke from the surrounding
cigarettes, everything was weakening around her
and his head and heart certainly couldn't take it.

They called him "chicken" in high school, a nickname
that constantly, and ironically pecked at his brain,
his every step, his world.

He passed on like a chicken too, cowering in the corner
of his toll booth where he worked, covered in his own
urine. One robbery and he was gone, like a thin, little
birthday candle, she thought as she glimpsed his makeup-
caked face from behind his glasses and within his casket.

She turned to walk away, expecting her own heels to click
onward but stopped, a closed grin stretched across her face
as she spun back around to him, to "chicken".

She leaned over his suited, lifeless frame as her cheeks
puffed out with stored breath. With a gust the swirling feathers
stormed out of her mouth, some stuck in her pearly white teeth
of feline likeness.

Blood stained them as she laughed, as she purred, and laughed.