At first, I thought I'd shit my pants. As the train rocked back and forth on the untended tracks I caught snatches of it and pulled my jacket closer around me. The man next to me burst out laughing at something someone on the other end of the line said somewhere off in the electric distance. Then it hit me and I sighed in relief as I realized it was only his halitosis after all. I glanced across the aisle, wondering if I'd make eye contact with the dark-eyed English girl drumming her fingers on her knee. ---------- There are many ways to get stitches. Sometimes you remember, most times you don't. Doesn't matter: your skin remembers everything. ---------- By day, he played trumpet while walking around the block. By night, he smoked whatever he could cook in scavenged light bulbs. No one cared to understand that each day was a big breath and that breathing was the root of everything good and everything bad.