In black-and-white relief

It wasn't even dawn
when she called me
and I could hear the tears
in her voice.

The scenario was the same,
but the circumstances were different:
they always were.

She hadn't come to school
in nearly a week;
said she was too busy thinking,
contemplating.

She began to cry again.

A dark room at a party.
Too much beer for a soul so raw;
I wondered if she'd kissed him
just to feel something.

Flat, her voice was flat and even
as she told the rest.
Her question...the square, foil packet
he brought out from his pocket.

And it was done.

On a pile of discarded coats,
in the back bedroom of the friend
of a friend
she only knew in passing.

I lay quiet, still, in my bed,
the virginal white of the canopy hanging above
stood out in the darkness,
a worn copy of Hamlet open to Act IV on my desk.

Her world was enclosed by a poster of The Strokes,
a veritable tower of CDs cascaded across her cluttered bedroom floor;
I imagined her huddled beneath a comforter
because she was always cold–-even during summer.

She didn't know his name.

I shuddered when she said the words,
never imagined anything outside of books
or movies,
when something so precious,
could turn so raw and empty.

So, I listened to her cry,
heard a clinking noise chased quickly by
the sound of liquid trickling...
knew her stash of vodka was getting a visit.

What was it about her that kept me so close?
I answered the phone, listened–-always–-
even when her very presence, her complacency,
was like an abrasion.

She made her choices,
and I was there to swallow up the regret.
I don't like to think about where I put
all of those bleak feelings;
afraid I might find myself more like her
than I imagine.

With a paintbrush in her hand
she creates beauty,
symmetry,
breath-taking motion.

Strange how, with different tools–-
that ever-present vodka bottle, for example–-
such different masterpieces are created.

She is a work full of storms and anger,
of fear and loathing,
of hopelessness.

Even in black-and-white photos,
the ones she takes like communion
because the camera speaks
the words she never could,
her eyes are empty.

Her mouth is always closed.