white. stone. portrait.

I drew in the corner of the stone tile; hunched for days, obsessed with my impermanent task. Crayons scattered across the floor, vanishing beneath the bed.  It took me three weeks to coat every tile on my side of the room, but the footfalls from our parties wore a streak through my masterpiece, even as I knelt. 

She had arrived like a cold wind in a firestorm. Comforting us even as she scattered the flames of our little drama, deeper, faster, and to the wind.  She was tall and still and young.  At fifteen years old she was enrolled in college art classes and graduate level geometric theory.  She loved math, the sky, the color blue, and the girl in the corner.

A few degrees from my fixated hand and white crayon, the girl in the corner is hugging her knees and laughing.  Her hands are shaking and her feet are poking through the duct tape holes in her army issue combat boots.  Her socks are two different shades of blue.  One is rain she says, and the other; water.  I am drawing snow, rain freezing it’s way down to earth.