Misery doesn’t wait until sunrise by Giovanni Mangiante

She phoned at around 2 in the morning
"I fucked him" she said
"It's true. I'm sorry"
I took a few seconds to myself
trying not to slip away from my skin
"Can you come over?"I asked
"I can't. My mom's sick and I'm-"
suddenly I heard a man's voice,
stern and gruff like a croak in a cavern;
apparently the phone call
woke him up
"Hey, babe, who's that you're calling?"I heard him say
"I'm sorry. I have to go. Don't call" she said, and hung up.

I opened up the third pack of cigarettes
took one and smoked it until
it burnt my fingers,
then put it out on my forearm,
and threw it on the ground.
I took the bottle of wine
from the fridge,
opened it,
had a big drag that burnt my throat,
but wouldn't be enough to kill
what was killing me inside that night.
I turned on the radio I had on top of the nightstand,

Rachmaninoff
Prelude in C Sharp Minor

"Okay" I whispered
"This isn't so bad"
and took another drag from the bottle.

Giovanni Mangiante, born on March 17th, 1996, is a bi-lingual writer from Lima, Peru. He has work published in Panoply, The Anti-Languorous Project, Dream Noir, Punk Noir Magazine, Minute Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Eunoia Review, and has upcoming poems in Down in the Dirt and Open Minds Quarterly. In writing, he found a way to cope with Borderline Personality Disorder.