you dug a grave for two

here lies-

into The abyss I'm tempted

where the Sun shines dark

where voices rise silent

into that soft abyss

I'm tempted -Again

Poetry can be repetitive, just like that. Just a flung whisper of dazzling words that sad hearts will cry for. Oh, joy. How dull.

Vandalized poetry, however, that implies something else. Victor knows it best: the intoxicating scent of an overused marker, the black scrawled over meaningless charms, the rustle of page after page. Even back then, when his intellect promised triumph in Lockland University, he savored the pastime like the night would savor another shadow: relentless. No business from a pre-med student, but still, an actual reason for a lip teased up. He missed those days; not the university that brimmed bright with ambitious minds, but the snap of adrenaline whenever a judgeful eye would rest on his "artwork". Or the feigned scandal on Eli's pair of blinks; he was well-mannered to the sight. And to feign: perfection, to be precise. Those were the days of suspense, to lunge upon little seconds of a more sombre mirror of his friend.

Friend was too dull a term, though. Likewise was the affair shared with poetry.

He should scrap a few more paragraphs later, Victor thought as he tossed dirt in for the newborn grave. Marcella Morgan would have some sweet, sweet sleep. Finally. Who better than Victor and Eli to tend after it?

Earth smudged far more than his hands; but the nasty pungence in his nostrils. He gripped the shovel tighter and looked up at Eliot. Vandalized poetry stirred calm in Victor, perhaps some apathy from Eli. For a fragment, he wondered if he would remember and stirr Eliot out of his flawless composure.

"I would have never figured to see Marcella here," Eli confessed, fingers stippled on the handle. Words easy, frail, as if he hadn't agreed to the premature burial for instance. Too much of a saint, even in the darkest night for them to grind down on a mutual nuisance.

"I was hoping to kill her here," Victor voiced instead. Eli didn't leap his glance up, yet Victor caught the fine line of his mouth twitch slightly. The Merit Cemetery was the clenched accordion for a fine trail of tragedies: over there, moss had entirely stained a miserable name from sight; look a little ahead and you would find the slope of mud where anyone might slip down and suffer a concussion; for good time's sake, Barry Lynn remained the bitter reminder of a certain incident.

Sydney had aided into pulling breath back into Lynn's lungs -Eli had grinded his teeth upon the unexpected return. It felt like a good memory, under a lonely night meant for two begrimed diggers. If only Victor could feel more.

Suddenly, Eli slackened his grip over his shovel and lifted up a shoulder to rub the side of his face against. Ahead, where spite boiled the highest, Victor teased, "Save the tears for her actual funeral, Eli." Hopefully, for yours. Too.

Dead and gone, Marcella was the border about to tip for the crossfire: at least until they finished burying the body, hours apart.

"It's not that, my cheek itches," Under the moon's smile, he quipped, restless. "And it seems I'll have to get a new pair of glasses: I can see all the earth just right, but you're a blur at times."

"Not that you would complain about that?"

"Not at all," Eli agreed solemnly, and despite the rancor that brew sonant in each cut syllable, Victor liked him for once for his honesty. Because that was the quality proposed for heroes like Eli, over the red that stained his -their- hands, over the suicide attempts that had plunged him -them- deep so many nights ago, in a cold tub. Victor entertained the thought of a lovely reminder, but he found himself grown exhausted of past resentments: that's what other friends did, reminisce. But then again, they had their present to scratch for, teeth and tongue.