sarcastic and seventeen, she was satisfied
with laughter and rainless mornings.
fingers stained gold with marker ink,
hours spent rolling on the cold floor after school.
when the hard work in the artwork was too much
they danced across the freshly polished floors,
skating on dusty socks
howling outdated love ballads.
and one day a boy with hooded eyes walks in
and joins their after-hours circle.

he calls her beautiful.
the blaze on her cheeks says her heart believes him.
his arms are thin, too, saplings, budding flowers.
his laugh is the joy of summer come two seasons early.
“I’ll never leave you,” he says,
sewing her eyes shut with infatuation.
one late November night they spend lying
on the cold, black cement of the basketball courts
he tells her he’s talking to someone
she knows isn’t her.

in Room 13B she sits in his lap
each word falls like a petal until the last one hits the floor
and she knows with a horrible certainty:
“he loves me not.”
heart gray with ash,
burned out and tired,
she relapses into red again, swears she’ll never trust again
as the cold, indifferent metal sinks into her arm.

his last words to her are an apology text she never opens.
alight with resentment,
she tapes the razor to the bottom of her desk
and cloaks herself with cold blue flame. rage.

ironically, the last thing she ever says to him is “thank you”.