Am a chalkboard, dust catchers full of old powder. Look at my hair, it is grey from memories trapped and caught, erased and dissolved but not quite gone. Shadows.

Streaky. To wash yr chalkboard you need water, lots, and you need not one washing over but two, or three. Keep rinsing yr rag. I have buckets and buckets of sad grey water; it is cold.

Am an empty canvas, you could splash me with dark blue and gold. Dripping. Moonsparks would burn right through me and leave tiny sizzled holes that were warm once.

(Another chalkboard, once: washed clean by the night custodians and scraped with a murderous intent. Boyoboy we never figured it out but one word (suicide) written in neat precise script scared the hell out of our twelve year old class.)

Stretch arms like you are about to grab the sky and hug it to shreds. Your back will be shoulderbones turned into baby wings. Your back will be shoulderwings that will never be taken away from you. Where have my wings gone? They are hidden, embarrassed to be seen. I'm no angel.

I was raised on red pepper and blood I am so hot if you strike me I will light like a match.

So here I am scraped raw: it feels like fingernails across the moon. It is only halfway to sparks; it is only halfway to dying embers. Where was it my wings have gone?

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