Painter

People will always leave, they will always be forgotten and I am certain I will always be unhappy.

Contact, his thumb hit the zipper, automatic, like a magnet, careful, slow and meticulous, unwrapping her like a gift that was not his (and she was no mans, he was right in this). He would wrap her back up later and place her back under the tree. He did not realise she had no name tag and no one would come to claim her (he did not look this far, it was not necessary she was not that girl, though he did not know she was not this girl)

He paints her as winter, on her back so she can't see, she always thought she was autumn, warm, inviting - cozy like an open fire, abundant and elegant; but she is still and brash - the means to an end, she moves only in waves to leave nothing in her wake. He knew more than she would like and she scrambles around frantically collecting the feathers she has tossed to the wind. Face down in sheets crumpled like lovers only could, tearing like silk. His hands, softer than the brush, warmer than the ice he's painting with. She's lying in the bed she made and he pays no mind to the way he is melting her down.

He wanted to paint her. She didn't think this was what it would mean.

As soon as she begins comes the wish for an end. A quick fix, a small relief, scratching an itch that never existed and wishing she was such a figment.

…So he paints her as winter, as trees without leaves, not falling, but fallen, not relieving, but relief. She thought she was autumn, saving memories and dreams, instead a barren landscape is all that he sees. He's pressing her buttons and tweaking her strings pushing for something more than she'll give.

She ties up her laces, forgets how to breathe, relief comes with silence, in place of belief (golden and crisp, bitter in taste); forgetting, forgotten giving up this time, violently silent and crossing that line. Her hands won't stop shaking for mistakes she has made and knowing this trust was broken in vain.

Winter is deathly, is cruel and unkind, freezing what nature dare leave behind. She is a soldier, caught in between, the crossfire of notice or being unseen, so roll back the seasons to the beginning of spring, leave this wish sealed, unspoken, unclaimed and let me be summer, vacant - unnamed.