decay

She is so tired by 8th period, but this could be her favorite. By the time this class rolls around, her heart feels like a squishy brown banana. Softened by the day’s bruising.

“Say Something Real,” she thinks as she looks into each set of eyes, full of disappointment and suspicion. “Something,” she implores the ceiling for help. It never answers, only rains down more questions.

“They’re only children!” Storms rage from desks, eyes gather herds of black clouds that twist into hurricanes. You’d have to be blind not to see these changes. Sometimes she feels she is the only one that does.

Her peers have called her weak. And she stands in the rain with out an umbrella or a coat. The others run shrieking under eaves while she stomps in the puddles barefoot.

“Say Something True,” she reminds herself. So she lifts her hands to catch shining sapphire crystals that melt into tiny, barely perceptible rivers.

I flick black ink
At white paper:
Silent static.

You and I:
Tiny black stains
On an empty page.

I will them to form
Letters, explaination, reason.
The white sky holds the black stars apart.

And the static, the noise
Fills the room, the emptiness,
Of You and I.

I
Drift
And

Scuttle
Scoot
Across

The
Gray
Pavement

I
Whisper
Secrets

Into
Empty
Tunnels

Where
Warmth
Swarms

I’m
Looking
For you

Everywhere
Is
You

I
Drift
Away

I am
The wind’s
Toy

I am
The sky’s
Mirror

I am
The pavement’s
Bones

Cold
Bright
Day

I
Drift
And

Scrape
Across
The Ice