We are three battered children, hiding our disappointment and pretending it does not show so clearly through our half-bitter smiles and empty laughter. We make love in time to the rhythm of a dirty subway, with mouths and toothy stories about the heartache we have known and all the ways we've turned it back beneath our skins. We have come to lose ourselves in the warmth of good company and in the beating of this city, traveling tonight with music ringing in our skulls. All sad songs, I believe -- in our skulls, in our skin, in our breath. Sad songs.

We are three battered children, and I am thankful for that, for it is no one else but children with whom I'd rather share this evening train -- children who still see the joy inside these sorry tales and remembrances, and who know that being battered does not have to mean being lost. We are high on liquor and desperate hedonism, hoping beyond hope that the liquor will last us long enough to do something truly foolish, and to lose what may be weighing us down.

Together we will heal ourselves; we sing silent pacts of how we’re already beyond the sorrow that lends the twists to our not-quite smiles, rattling through empty hollow tunnels with speed like wind. We relate the tales, overanalyze and ponder how drunk we really are. We watch the faces come and go, try to figure out the ads above our heads, and grip tightly to cold metal poles, passing hands and whispers with strangers. We meander on in our heads and wade through the lovely images that have sustained us, all the while going on about the realities that blow those dreams away. We know the betrayal of trust, the lost emotion and the false impressions that have led us to this place. We know them well. We have lived inside of them so long. We share them with each other for ourselves and also for them. We are three battered children, together and alone, pretending we don’t know the hurt in each other’s eyes, holding tight, holding on, and hoping to help all the others in our trio to come out the other side, trying to hide that we are three gaping holes, not ready for the sunlight, but trying.

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