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A cup of rain

A bucket of pain

A drum of love…

I was walking into the café with a ghost

I was talking about a dream

Something to do with red berries

And torturous vampire Blood-Ade

“Ohhhh yeah!”

The police come bashing through the wall

Guns drawn, yelling, tear gas and confusion

My only wish is that I had 10 wishes more

Slammed against the wall

“Kiss the plaster!”

Someone rattling off my rights

I’m being arrested for

The killing of another person

“I didn’t do it! I’m innocent. I swear.”

Everyone’s innocent until they do it

Sitting in a jail cell with someone else

A dark brooding figure on the edge of a solid bench

Chin tucked in deep

Sounds like he’s praying

I sit on the bench opposite and watch

He has strange dark hair

And he’s wearing a black cape

“What are you in for?” I ask him

He looks up

His face is pointy and gray, like an old horror movie

“Biting people,” he says softly. “What about you?”

“They say I killed someone. So you better not mess with me.”

“Did you?”

“Maybe.”

The cell door opens, and they drag him out

He bares his teeth at me as he leaves, hisses

I think of volcanoes at sunset

Boiling fire beneath a red-orange sky

I think of a long-ago movie

Childhood cinema

Stars on the ceiling

Sun glares after the show

No school tomorrow

No work tomorrow

Nothing but life