a distracted dreamer
  
  
 what else to do when
 the rain falls so heavy
 against the window
 outside?
  
 Get melancholic
 get poetic
 have a drink
 have another
  
 close and then lock the door
 to your room
 and don't listen to
 the voices coming
 from outside
 They want to distract you
 They don't want you
 to be successful
 and make it in
 life
  
 They're all haters
  
 He covered his ears
 and squinted his eyes at the
 computer screen
 doing his best to block out
 the negativity that came
 from beyond the door
  
 “I can't get up!” the voice
 croaked. “Come help me. I can't
 get up.” And then with
 a cry, “Please!”
  
 “Shut the fuck up, grandma!
 I'm trying to
 write in here. Jesus Christ, I'm
 trying to make
 it big, don't you understand?
 For fuck's sake now.”
  
 He had also sent a manuscript
 to a potential
 publisher and was waiting for
 a reply. It's been
 two days already. 

 peace was never an option
  
  
 there have been
 too many fights lately
  
 she was a
 musician
 and she put it as,
 “Darling, we need to change
 the tune.”
  
 He was a
 writer
 and he shot her
  
 and then himself

 king who would go down with honor
  
  
 he had no shoes
 and you could hardly call
 his shirt a shirt
 but he
 sat between those two
 trash cans like some king
 on his throne
  
 holding to a stick
 like a scepter
  
 He drank from an old
 rusty can of
 beans
 but held it like some golden
 goblet
  
 Clearly he lost the
 ability to
 taste because in the can
 he mixed all he could
 find in the trash
  
 Beer with vodka
 with tequila with wine
 and acetone
 and rubbing alcohol
  
 He had a fearsome guardian
 about him
 A white dog who constantly
 licked his vomit from
 the ground
  
 It looked black
 and spongy
 like coffee grounds
  
 Some passersby offered to help him
 and he refused
  
 This was a king who
 would go down with honor
 after he lost
 his kingdom

 to choose the bottle
  
  
 there are many reasons a woman
 can say her final
 goodbye to you
  
 and somehow they
 all feel
 different
  
 He supposed the worst of all
 had to be when
 her final goodbye is
 influenced by another man
  
 made sense
  
 but that wasn't his case
 Also he was too drunk
 to think
 straight now. And in too much
 pain.
  
 “It's the final goodbye,” she had
 said. “You chose the bottle
 over me, now live
 with the bottle. Goodbye.”
  
 Goddammit, this
 really hurt
 His dick was only getting harder
 and more blue
 stuck in the mouth
 of the bottle
  
 Yet still, through all the
 pain and the
 dizziness he reached for the
 phone and called her.
 He said, “Hey, I just want you
 to know that... It was
 you I had in mind when I did it.
 I did it while thinking
 of you, love.”
  
 She hung up.

 the female assassin
  
  
 the ashtray was looking more
 and more
 like a sick hedgehog
  
 and her yellowed fingers
 added one more quill to it
  
 she sat back in her chair
  
 work wasn't in the best of stages lately and
 her office looked like a junkie's
 trailer. You could
 scrape the nicotine
 off the walls. In fact, she
 would get nicotine under her nails if she
 just scratched her skin
 anywhere
  
 But otherwise she was
 a beauty
 and that was a problem. Beautiful
 women have the worst
 luck in marriages
  
 The husband left and the two girls went
 with him
 They were sick and tired of her
 habit to consume more cigarette smoke than
 oxygen
  
 And drinking was also a problem
 though not nearly
 as big
  
 The worst drinking has ever done to her
 was to make her lose
 the driving license which she never
 bothered to take back
  
 The real problem was,
 as always,
 a lack of money. If the damn phone didn't
 ring soon
 she would have to kill someone
 for a pack of cigarettes
  
 Assuming she could still
 kill
 someone with her body rotting from the
 inside. She was fine with
 breast cancer
 but now lung cancer joined too
 and it was by far nastier
  
 Still
 that was all right
 It doesn't take a healthy body to pull
 a trigger
  
 And speaking of triggers
 She opened a drawer in her desk
 took out the gun
 studied it
  
 Not loaded
  
 She browsed through the drawer
  
 Only one bullet left. One single bullet.
 These things cost money
 too
  
 Damn it
  
 But it's like they said back in
 the mercenary camp
 The last bullet is always preserved to be
 used on the self
  
 She loaded the bullet into the
 gun
  
 A life lived well is one
 lived without regrets and without
 ever asking for mercy
 or feeling sorry for yourself
  
 At 39
 she had that. There was nothing
 else to be taken
 away from it
  
 She put the gun to her
 temple
  
 Smiled
  
 "Except for a final smoke." 

Bogdan Dragos works as a dispatcher for a Romanian gambling company (supervising casinos) and that implies spending twelve hours alone in the office (where he daydreams and writes poetry that he e-mails to himself).