01.

She was an artist, she dipped
her brushes into thick oils and
argued with watercolors, finding them
to run away too often from where she
wanted them to stay, she prefered the
paint that let her be more in control
of the world she created.

02.

We met in math and she was
drawing shadows on her papers and
I was doodling comics, I was creating
offbeat stars. She was older, skipped
too many classes, hated math, loved
to dangle cigarettes out of her mouth
even though she was barely 17.

03.

She believed in Persephone, in
dreams as a reality. She believed in
blaming her problems on the
Gods and Goddesses she read
about, she conjured them up in her palms
and tosses them at me. My eyelashes
fluttered; She dared me to cry.

04.

We never spoke of it, our quiet
mouths said enough. My eyes were
distant. One morning I awoke and realized
she was a lie, in the form of a girl. She was

lying. I had wings, I could get away.

05.

“Let me watch you draw,” they would beg her,

& she would be crimson cheeked,
shading in a palm tree, or a beautiful woman's
calf. And I would turn the other way,
and write about my silence, and why. Why no one
ever asked to watch me write

ever asked to watch me at all.