I tried to paint it a clean white
like a picket fence and a small house with a blue sky
The apple tree in front with a perfect swing.
when really it was more like
the crying, smothered windshield when
it rains, speeding on the freeway,
my lips wet and raw,
And the air as cold as shots of vodka.

the blanket felt ridiculously small,
and all I wanted was to be covered completely,
possibly under the carpet like a piece of dust, when
I noticed your skin coming closer
- the color of morning coffee with a spoonful
of cream. – eyes like almonds, my eyesight
like a cloud, and the whole room
spinning.

Reminding you, I am still wholly female
so I project my pain passively,
scratching away till your ego feels like nothing more
than a used lottery card with all
the hopeful numbers revealed as hopeless.

And it was supposed to be something blue
and something borrowed, but instead it
was just lost, at sixteen, irretrievable like a
dream at midnight, with too many more years left
To live without it.