• It was midnight.
    It was midnight and her lips were stained black and her hands quivered in the moon shadows.
    It was midnight.
    Midnight was supposed to be her dream place, nestled with butterflies and botched colors.
    She was a botched color, milk mixed with crusted paints left awry.

    She breathed at midnight.
    She breathed at midnights, small shards of glassy ink blobs cutting her throat.
    She breathed at midnight.
    Breathing at midnight was supposed to be easy and smooth, not harsh and wet.
    She was wet, like a soggy love letter stained sin black by the world.

    She cried out at midnight.
    She cried out at midnight of her oh- so sad existence at midnight, tears falling like glass onto concrete.
    She cried out at midnight.
    Crying at midnight was supposed to be impossible, the tears of another day wiped away.
    She was broken, like a clock that was supposed to have been fixed twenty years before.

    Arms wrapped about her at midnight.
    Arms wrapped about her at midnight and she prayed and cried and screamed and fought.
    Arms wrapped about her at midnight.
    Stretching arms were supposed to coddle, not harm and score porcelain angels at midnight.
    She was bleeding, and she was darkened, because everyone knows blood is always black at midnight.

    Midnight embraced her as though it could wash away the marred ink from her scorched skin
    And her sins were black lipstick that she smudged off her porcelain pink lips.
    And her hands shown angel alabaster against demon ebony, lily against black rose.
    And at 12:01 she steadied and ceased and prayed, her wings pinned against a hard concrete- brick wall.
    And her sins were like black lipstick, like Mother Earth's sins, and they painted her like a mural.
    And they covered her like graffiti upon a blank wall, and they colored her black and blue.
    And her sins were like black lipstick, like Mother Earth's sins.
    And they covered her like graffiti upon a blank wall.
    And her sins were like black lipstick, like Mother Earth’s sin.
    And they covered her like graffiti upon a blank wall.