"One firm step," she said. As shallow as she must be, one could think she radiates midnight, and while no one is looking, her lips are similar to Burgundy—soaked in wine and in her drunken state; resting her body as she sat mellowly where no one would choose those seats made for her—deluding herself that there's just too much space in between, and they danced around each other's thick skin while their gazes were fixed on her. "One firm step," she says, straightening her back.
 
Every day, she'd meet her own grim reaper in the shade of the earth's brown mist, kissed by her long, thick lashes as she closed her eyes, surrounded by the people she considered dead. As strange as it was, they didn't know her. There's one string of luck hanging side by side in hopes that she'll live another day.
 
At dusk, she'll attempt to accompany the earth's body at her expense. She'll whisper nice things, and they'll blush at the thought of her noticing them. She'll offer her hand and kiss the molds, and her lips, the tint of burgundy, will now be the same pigment as the earth's body, and they'll chuckle at the sight of her.
 
When the world is laughing at her, death stands still in front of her, waiting for her presence, but she remains still. When the sky cries for her, she gives him rainbows and butterflies, even though he hates them. And when she's alone at night, she kisses the flies roaming around her bed while he thinks of her—but then again, the expression of death is inevitable. It seems like he doesn't want her to be happy. She lets Earth do what he wants with her, even if her skin glows like ivory. She lets him soak her in his dark mists and long-tailed veins, and death starts to interfere again.
 
He shows up in a crowded room with his thousands of soldiers, pretty faces, and partygoers. In his simple armor and at the grocery store, in his childlike appearance and beggar state. She must have been so exhausted from showing up minutes later or arriving at his usual business hour—midnight. Even with the screen, she usually spends the rest of her day. He shows up. Death was persistent. He signifies everything she could've had, even the voices implanted inside her. They named him Death. Sometimes he's a song, a lyric, or an instrument she could not quite understand; the ring before the call was answered; the tap before the keyboard; the lump before it washes down by the water; the movement before she lays her eyes on.
 
He was once a person she grew tired of—but now a metaphor she'll always keep in the back of her notebook. And sometimes, he is an anecdote every old person mentions in their hospital bed. She was shallow, but he was a willow tree.
A swamp.
A locust.
A lover once.

across both acres.

lawns and fields.

haze of uniform green.

horizons nestled upending.

bowls of porcelain grey.

like crevices coiled up.

remaining time spills.

over mounds.

And over the specks of dust and rose-colored evenings,
in the melancholic fate of soliloquy;
yet as wretched as her soul be, her very first breath was, “Have mercy.”
 
The pale, starry-eyed of April’s sky ends, and it’s pouring; the trees are swaying in their places; the sun is impressed by the rising of the lilies.
Daunted by the ray of light, quietly caressing its innocence.
 
She looked over the moon, as if it were painted by someone she knew.
In hope, she clenched her fist and whispered again and again and again.
Like the petals of dried daisies fallen from the moon.
 
She knew it’s written on the stars; someone knows her name.
 
The airy summer between spring and March’s language, an imprecise grief of longing,
a desert of bones starved on
an ethereal ghost of past summers and the sickening void of the night sky,
she needed to endure
something in her holler with violence—some rage kept on the other side of her old pillow.
 
And yet it’s still written on the stars—someone knows her name.
 
Where the river flows, she follows.
In hopes she’d be directed to the one who wrote her;
achingly believing she’s the muse this time.
Who else could have written her the way she is?
 
With her eyes the same as the earthly sand,
her lips alive in light gray, with the way she lit up when the moon reveals himself to her,
the sea pushes upon the land as if it were longing to kiss her weary feet.
 
With the way her hips dance when she walks, when she closes her eyes, only she can hear her author’s note at the back of her heart. Slowly yet surely whispering, “It’s written on the stars. I wrote your name, my love.”
 
And so she follows the flow of the river, faithfully locking her eyes in the waters' steepness. She gently brushes the cold river, and so it quietly blushes at the thought of her.

That someone like her was cared for enough by her own artist.