No story of healing. No self-help arc. No light at the end of the tunnel.

These are poems written on the 6 train heading uptown. Scrawled into napkins at 3 a.m. after too much gin and not enough sleep. This is Harlem with a busted lip. Love that limps. Truth that slurs. And memories that won't stop calling, even after you turned your phone off.

Love and Murder doesn't offer closure. It doesn't pretend to fix you. Jay Pretsch just hands you a glass, still half-full of whatever made you ruin your own life last time. And you better enjoy it, because it's all you get.

So take a sip. Or don't.

This isn't therapy.

This is survival.