She Is.

Fathoming What Is.

-----I hear her. The quiet spatter of Spring rain tapping against my apartment window. The gentle clouds bring in a cold blue light, shadowing the kitchen and dining area towards the back. I'm standing alone, in between and behind her breath, doing as I've always done: painting with her in the light that guides my hand throughout every movement of my wrist on the canvas. Those scentless, dollar-priced candles I buy for the night �" they're just cheap imitations compared to what she sheds about this room right now. The candle's fire melted into my coffee table, damaged the expensive wood from which it was crafted. I can't possibly pay to repair it just yet.

-----But right now, it's her sound. She couldn't be much more or less without losing that utter perfection of pitch. Water against glass, it leaves my cracked body feeling wet sometimes. She whispers softly, moving my arm like a puppeteer does. I breath into what she breathes out, stroking to her heartbeat, coloring to her attack. She's relentless, leaving a rhythm that's never been properly diagnosed. I ask, “Who are you, my lovely dancer?”

-----And it's true where she walks, too. Shadows hide behind every book, album, and film case that lay about my living space. They wait, all of them, on a single call of mine to turn and show their real selves to her ever-efficient gaze. She pierces them through, turns them to stone. The colors I see are subjective and factual, her perspective. She touches my hand to the brush, brush to the paper. I, letting her do this, then make my move.

-----I stack skin onto bone and facial structure, streaming hot blood through it. I whistle in the air a wind which beats violently on her torn sundress and on the red flag she holds high in her bare knuckled fists. The wind and shattering earth ravages the landscape in natural disaster. She's poised, slanted in the wind and on breaking rock, eyes closed and focused. My eyes close with hers for a time, noticing the words appear on her scarlet fabric:

"I am"