Round
by David Gecic

Originally published in After Hours #5 (Summer 2002)

One of us always had a notebook or a binder
That we could use for our lines,
Though any flat surface would do.
I always felt that the lines
I did alone were better than the lines we did together.
Because I was a poet and the responsible one
we used my license to smooth out the lines.
You always had some kind of ticket.
Little by little your chemistry changed,
Inside the chemicals confined
in a steady stream of consumption culminated in an evening of flashing lights.
You prayed that your spleen
swollen to a point near bursting could remove the toxins from your body
and remove the pain.
Weeks of not eating anything but milkshakes and bread
because these were the only things to stay down
had finally taken their toll
and now they were exacting it.
I knew you would live
but I did not know this would change you.
When you said you'd have no more
I just took it as another line
a line before the next one
for flat surfaces are everywhere,
But maybe we understood a little bit more ourselves.
The lines we did together are gone
quickly passing like lightening.
The lines we did apart however are still here
and in those lines
all of the surfaces are round.