When I first saw her
She was standing over me, like a worn statue of Aphrodite. She radiated beauty and power and her skin glistened like a lake reflecting the fragile moonlight
When I first saw her, she was wearing an asking Alexandria t shirt, a beacon of individuality in a copy and paste status quo of basketball shorts and loaded guns aimed at the weak.
When I first saw her, I was laying on the ground looking up. I was halfway through the word help, she was halfway through the word stop.
I was 13. Kids a few years older and twice my size held me by my throat and I choked on the gasoline bile boiling up from my stomach.
After she broke a few knuckles, she dusted me off.
When I first saw her, she said, youre kind of a loser, but I like you.
When I last saw her, I bent over the casket to kiss her cheek. The bruises on her neck and cuts in her wrists still hid behind the make up and I wouldve have seen them regardless of the caskets opening. I had this childlike dream that a tear would seep through her chest and water her soul enough to regrow and shed once again beam that beautiful smile that cut through the fog of life. I stood over her like a mournful tower, codemned to not move from its place. "Youre kind of a loser, but I love you"
