she tilts her head to the sound of closed windows nestled between cherry paints blossoming over walls like twine packaging waiting to burst open with life.
the same whisper seeping through gaudy cracks beneath the door seeps over into veins pulsing towards her heart. cherry reds, cherry red.
she picks at colored flowers with her mind until they shrivel dry broken browns quickly shoving them between book pages to make them last a bit longer.
and with eyes tracing outlines of the sky she tries to numb her thoughts to those whispers that swallow her whole with the night, wallowing and swallowing, until she feels the presence of every last shriveled petal she's ever known.