I am a Girl
I am a girl, lying on the pavement at night. It is cold, the gravel of the pavement biting into the skin of my back. The cars swishing past can’t see me, the silence in between them pays no attention.
A tree rooted near me shakes and shifts in the wind. The grass surrounding it riffles, seeming soft and yielding. The wooden fence beside me is high and unmoving, each of its stiff planks overlapping the next.
The lights of the pedestrian crossing stay on green. The red man never moves, never disappears, never changes colour. My cheeks are stiff with dried tears. Hours of silence have passed since I tried to put on my shirt. It lies half under me, dry and white. My black trousers are cool on my thighs, the blood making them stick to my skin.
A small stone, flint, lies near my face. Its smooth, curving faces sweep towards each other, joining to form sharp ridges. In places, the peaks are replaced by a rough plateau, where the faces haven’t quite joined, or where the point has been chipped off.
I look through my broken eyes searching for the moon, but it’s gone, only the frozen stars left behind. I can’t stop shivering, try to concentrate on my hand, bathed in a warm pool of red.
The stars blur and fade, and then it’s over.