Powder Burns

Time lurches backward and there I am again. Bargaining with your disinterest for a chance to know you. A laugh. A frown. Anything to show some substance. That inside that ghost still beats the heart of someone who remembers what it was to live.

You sold me so much bullshit. But you never sold me on myself.

I'm unattractive and I'm insecure. I'm weak in all the places a woman should be strong. And strong in all the places one shouldn't be.

I'm no one's love, but I've had some lovers. It's an interesting house of mirrors navigating those feelings.

Don't try to remember, but I always do. The wind out there blows and it rattles the glass in these windows. That's the trouble with windows. Doesn't matter if they're locked. Doesn't matter if they're closed.

You still see everything out there. And it can still look back.

Can't touch it, but you wish you could.

Then we get too close. Looking out from. And all we can see is ourselves.

Or want to.

Bullets wheezing in their chambers as the trigger strokes. The pressure irritating the sores on my finger.

A woman is just a girl who refuses to be broken.

but I let that happen so long ago.