If she could draw you a picture

It would be of the street where she lived.

The places she played.

 

The graveled driveway.

The puddle.

Jimmy’s green house.

The enclosed porch they played on.

 

She would draw

The path to the woods

Behind Jimmy’s house.

The path they took.

The place she wanted to take him.

To the railroad tracks.

Or the place it happened instead.

 

The spot’s right there in her memory.

She sees it but can’t draw it.

Wishes someone could look in and see it too.

 

She walks around in it.

The space, the leaves, the tiny clearing.

The place she landed.

The spot she was thrown to.

 

 

She marks it.

It’s there in her brain.

The place.

The place.

 

The path back.

The tree at the entrance

To the cheap apartments she lived in.

Perhaps a quarter mile away.

 

Her bicycle by the steps to her apartment.

How surreal her bicycle seemed to her

Afterward.

 

How crazy she felt.

Heart still pounding

From the shock.

The pursuit.

 

Looking back to see if he was coming.

Terrified he might still be coming.

Adrenaline coursing.

 

 

Mind singularly focused,

Thinking only of running,

Of hiding all this,

Of escape.

 

 

Her bicycle.

It sticks in her brain.

Evidence of

Life uninterrupted.

 

 

Of surrealness.

Of life moving onward.

Nobody knowing.

Nobody asking.

 

Photo Credit: Emily Poisel — Look Cute.