"Hello?"
"Hey, sweetheart."
"What-- who is this? Do you realize what time it is?"
"Calm down, sweetheart. It's just me."
"D... Danny? What the hell are you doing? It's 3:00 am! How did you even get my new apartment number?"
"Oh, come on, sweetheart. A friend. Besides, I even had enough courtesy to wait to call you."
"Until 3:00 am."
"I waited until you got home."
"More like until you got home."
"Once upon a time, it was you, too, babe."
"Are you high?"
"No. Not anymore. Aren't you proud?"
"Fuck off."
"Hey, come on, calm down. Look, I know I haven't called and all..."
"It's been six months."
"Missed me?"
"You have five seconds
Oh, Pretty girls with hair all curled fall to
the ground when he walks in the crowded room.
With quiv'ring lips and hopeful eyes, they say:
"Oh, save us, love, oh, save us from ourselves."
And monotone with eyes long dead, he says,
"Pretty girls with hair in curls bleed pearls and
all the diamonds on this fair and lovely earth;
it pains me, dears, to see you here, hurting."
They smiled, lovely, at him, then, until,
"So then," he said, lips all but cheered, "We have
a choice to make. Give me your hearts, and I
shall fail, but you will never hurt again."
And so they gave him everything, without a pause:
And he, the trickster, ran