“Neon Rain” by Robert Lyons

In all honesty,
I don't really know why I hit him.
It's all a blur,
Like some partially remembered past life.
I was swept up in the haze of the clubs bass,
My heart dropping with the beat
And burning away with every swift glance I took of her.
It was a lot like looking into the sun.
My eyes would collapse
And I knew if I kept looking
I would never see light again.
I would never see anything again.
Everyone is jumping and dancing,
Howling and shouting;
Using the noise to cover up everything inside them.
The rain of lights merged together in perfect harmony
With the thunder of the DJ
Neon flares coming down from the skies
To mask
And out glow the fires of our young hearts.
The strobe flashes as I fail to fight the urge to look back at her.
Her bony hand sliding across his hard abs:
Her golden hair brushing his face.
I'd seen it all before,
But how her eyes flashed in the light.
Blue,
Blue like the sea,
Blue like the sky,
Blue like me.
I could feel this gaping hole growing inside me.
I wanted to destroy every single canvas that lined the walls.
I wanted to destroy everything beautiful
I would never have.
Like a cancer,
It spread throughout my body.
My hair stood on end,
And my fist,
Perfect like a god,
Trembled.
I felt a hand reach out for my shoulder.
It felt so heavy.
I was sinking deeper and deeper into some kind of tar bog.
That moment could not be preserved.
It had to go.
Those feelings,
That hatred,
Could no longer contain itself in me,
And I'd be damned
To bury it any deeper in an already crowded grave.
So I snapped.
I only remember the sting of the punch,
The pain,
And feeling my heart in my knuckles.
Everything went black.
I finally came to with the sounds of silence.
The music had stopped.
The lights dialed down,
And greeted by fifty blank faces
Paler than a strobe.
Their mouths hung open
Like some kind of retarded in-bred baby.
I could feel something crawling on me.
It was moist and thick.
I looked down,
My head filled with cement,
And my eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere.
Thick
And far too black than it was supposed to be.
At my feet,
He laid,
Squirming like a fish on a hook.
I don't know his name,
Or anything about him.
I'd never met him before in my life.
He wasn't a stranger though.
There was something in him I recognized,
Something familiar,
But distant.
I wasn't sure what it was just quite yet.
I'm sorry,
Annabel,
But someone was going to get hurt.
It was inevitable.
There were too many bombs dropped.
Fragmentation
Spreads faster than a wildfire,
And there will be civilian casualties.
Pieces of you and I lodged into them forever:
A wound that would never stop bleeding.
The only mistake he ever made
Was being within the blast radius,
And he won't soon forget what pain feels like.
What love feels like.
Our diary
Written through the scars
He will wake up to every morning.
Our love will spread like a disease
Through our hatred.
Passing on to everyone we meet.
A chain being fused link by link.
That boy,
Bleeding and twitching at my feet,
Used to be me.
This is our immortality.
This is our love everlasting.