She spoke with half-smoked cigarettes and lilting cursive scribbled over last night’s letter’s return address, her bags packed with only a backless dress. Nails dripping black and red blood and paint indistinguishable in the darkness of the winding alleyways zigzagging her heart. She was truly, unendingly lost in the mazes of her mind as she traveled backwards with a string lazily trailing after broken stilettos. Yesterday’s rain still dripping from empty window sills and illuminated by lanterns lit with fireflies found solace in her silent tears for they were companions, cut from the same paper-thin cloth. Maybe a goddess had worn it once, but those days were long gone when she lit it aflame with a cigarette fresh from her lips. Desire was never a question — this she had learned from the fire overtaking her overflowing mind — and yet it was soundlessly spoken on empty bottles not yet broken and swept up by the sea. Only the blind man could see her now just as the deaf girl heard her cries and thus she remained unanswered. This, however, she did not mind for being lost was no longer not a choice.
3/21/2021 She had passed the exit of the maze, and yet she did not hesitate to continue on just as she had done the hundred times before.