I am parked at the elementary school across from her house, listening to the rain pound against the roof of the car. I feel dislocated and ghost-like. I am a cadaver bored with its own funeral. The painkillers are making it difficult for me to concentrate. The streetlight to my left flickers for a few moments and then deserts me. Ash grey clouds seal off the sky, ensuring that God will not be able to see what I am about to do

She lives in a small, one-story house on the corner with her mother, who works the graveyard shift at the hospital and won't be home for another four hours. Her sleek blue sedan sits crooked and lonely in the driveway. A bed of neglected roses wait patiently for the sunrise. Her bedroom glows gently like a firefly and I can see her sexless, heroin form moving behind the drawn curtains. She is animated and gesturing wildly with her left arm. Probably talking on the phone

She used to make me think of beautiful things like waterfalls and wildflowers, deer frolicking in the snow. Now I can only think of autopsies and taxidermy, mummified Egyptian princesses. I remember how she used to shiver when I would toy with her nipple ring. I remember how she used to keep mouthwash by her bed, scared of her kisses tasting like cigarettes. I remember a white rabbit strung up between two trees, gutted and left to rot

I start whisper-singing the Pixies "Debaser" to myself
And glance over at the bolt cutters. They are lying on the floor in a puddle of congealed blood and bone splinters. Two of my left toes and all of my left fingers are piled in the open glove box. Seven digits, one for each day we've been apart. I take two more Vicodins and light up another cigarette. Then I wrap some fresh gauze around my hand. I reach over to the passengers seat and stroke the nine-millimeter lovingly, knowingly. I spent hours carefully scrawling her name onto the side of each bullet

Tonight I am going to take Jennifer into my arms and love her into oblivion