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The lions come out at night, after the lights go out.  I know, because I've seen them.
Why lions? What do they do?
They sit around and do lion things.  Lay in the sun and growl at each other.  Sometimes they have sex but not often.  I try not to watch.
In the dark?
Of course.  Who doesn't have sex in the dark?

She turned the light off, curled up in   her bed and dreamed of sleep.  Dreamed of a voice, a ghost in the back seat of her car.  Of a world made of beige khaki, where all her ex-boyfriend's friends lived.  All of her ex-friends.  They lived in the beige world and she drove through with a ghost in the back seat of her green Olds Eighty-Eight.  Beethoven playing over the radio, over and over again, Moonlight Sonata unendingly.  G sharp C sharp E, G sharp B sharp F.  In perfect rhythm.  And the ghost poke in the voice that was sometimes her father's and sometimes the new reporter who had died the year before.  A beige world, she would try to imagine the next day, when blue-white water poured over her head and purple soak cleaned her pale, white-pink body.  The day would pass and another piece of her  heart would be coughed up through her throat and her friend would say it was the smoking but it was really her heart, broken.

The lions have friends too.  Beautiful friends with white eyes and dark mouths.
What are they?
They have no names.  They are the Nameless, the Ghosts.  They are beautiful but terrifying.
And they are the lions' friends?
Yes, but sometimes the lions eat them.

She watched the sunset from the Olds Eighty-Eight and held hands over the console.  She told him of how she knew they were meant to be.  That right-now-in-this-moment everything was perfect.  There was nothing better than this.  He smiled but maybe inside he was breaking.  Alone he coughed up pieces of his own heart.  Or he smoked until his head ached and everything felt warm.  Or he imagined all the people he had had sex with, all the people he would have sex with.  Or maybe he coughed up pieces of his own heart.
She dreamed of ghosts, of mean with long dark hair and pens filled with pure light.  She walked among the towers of golden love and learned to wield a sword of happiness in suspension.  NO one understood the stories, no one believed the talents she had gained until she beat him over the head with a stick and passed out. They listened and smiled and laughed at the ridiculous thought of armor made of anger and lances of pure ecstasy until they returned home and shut off the lights and rolled dice that decided people's fate and sent armies into battle.  They understood they just couldn't say.  Because now that they had laughed they could be laughed at too and no one wanted that.

The Nameless Ones sit in circles and sing.  They call the names of people who are going to die.  They mourn the passing and talk of their lives.
Do they know these people?
No but they love them anyway.  They love them because they have lived and the Nameless Ones have not.
Do you know these people?
Sometimes.  Sometimes they are important, like the man on the news, and sometimes they are just people.  People with families and lives and reasons to breath.
It sounds nice.
Its not.

She fell for him through alcohol glazed eyes and lust.  She loved him, even thought it didn't seem right.  It wasn't what she told herself was right.  But it felt right.  Or maybe it didn't and she did it anyway. It was hard to tell.  She was such a good liar sometimes she could even lie to her self.  So she lied to herself and laid with him and learned what happiness felt like.  What lust and joy and anger really were and how they were all part of love.  Its a small word, she would say, but its carries a lot.  Poor thing.  She started riding in the Olds Eighty-Eight and learned how nice it felt to call someone “boyfriend” for the first time.  It was fresh and new and lovely.  It was hope contained within her chest and she would bare herself for him but never open her chest for fear the hope might escape.  It rested there next to her heart until the sunset, until the snow fall, until the I Don't Love You.  Until her heart slowly fell to pieces and she dreamed of beige worlds and coughed up chunks of her own heart.  Then it left.  Went away.  And she was left alone, surrounded by friends and snow and responsibility.

And sometimes a girl comes and sits in the dark with the lions and the Nameless Ones.
A girl?
A real girl.  A flesh and blood real girl with hair like fall marigolds and skin like parchment.
What does she do?
She sits among the Nameless Ones and sings their songs and drinks their wine.  And sometimes, when she coughs, she gives on of them a piece of her heart.  And they thank her so kindly it would make you weep.  Makes me weep.
Give away her heart.
She doesn't need it anymore.