Duluth and the Girl I love.

I'm out here because you're in there. tucking in the kids with clean hands, bloodless hands

Now Warm dozing, dreaming, watching tv and spilling another glass of wine.

You gave me the money and told me up go

You didn't feel safe

You asked me to live with the monsters in the dark so you don't have to. You wanted it all to stop.

Out here the lights don't stop. they fight the darkness.

Out here the silence swarms up from my boots in the snow as I stop to exhale the violence in my heart, and my ears and eyes with every bit of alone this city has to give.

I watch you in your dark in house from my blacked out car; your sleepy shutters drawn.

Out here I watch your suicide son drive his car, fishtailing down backroads and main drags, trying to earn the invincibility he's already been given.

I pull your baby back from the edge thrusting my knuckles deep into her chest pushing life in as she chokes it out. 34 years, & 2 babies of her own. She's still your baby at least for another day.

I leave my own daughter in her bed her tiny fingers pulling at my pockets as I get ready to leave. Pleading with hugs for me to stay.

But you gave me the money. You gave me the gun.

You asked me to live with the monsters in the dark.