"By Way of Arkansas"

Her face is burnt and peeling from hours in the hot sun slathered in baby oil. She talks real tough with a jaunty fa-get-ah-bout-it attitude. “Oh yeah,” she says, “I’d do it again” as she lightly strokes her wrist wrapped in pristine gauze. When she thinks no one is watching the truth unfolds, and the darkness wraps her with its barbed wings. Tears well in her eyes running her thick, black mascara down her burnt cheeks adding insult to her injury. Aleathia Drehmer 2006 Published by Haggard & Halloo 12/06