On this wooden bench, sitting among standing
waves of people soar by this silence of screeching metal needles
imprinted in skin, etched in flesh.
I see a faded gray girl on a torn sheet of soul, not a trace of red.

She stares at me, past all those trivialities—
her eyes are black orbs with pupils inscribed within a frozen face
scratching the hardened paint deep down to my façade’s canvas.
She’s a ghost drifting in and out her mind’s labyrinth.

Is she waiting for someone? Something? In her laced, fading dress
fit on her body so perfectly—worn as though it was her, but more…
Secrets trapped by paper, sitting obediently under a man’s hand
moving silently with his deadly weapon.

I hear her voice screaming, succumbing to the master
chaining her to wait an eternity of lines, shades, erases.
She’s listening to her release’s harbinger, a color out of reach.
Yet her hands clench in hope, grasping a rose, its stem of thorns.

It’s funny how the pencil carries her face and body towards me
How the pointed lead tip shapes those eyes and brings to life
her muted screams that die down in a mutual surrender.
This is the girl in the paper: gray, black, and white.
I am the girl in the flesh: able to draw, erase, and color.