this is the only life she has ever known.

sitting at the computer desk. blinds drawn, door closed. melancholy poetry on a saturday afternoon. mediocre stories on a sunday morning. fingers tap the keyboard like echoes of emptiness.

nothing. not much, at least. hollow, say the words when she reads them back from the glowing screen. we are nothing to you.

you are nothing to us. she spins her reality into a synonym for essential non-existence, whatever that means, sitting on the porch swing in the ominous twilight, hugging her knees like the bars of a cage. she's been sucking life from the air through the gaps of her teeth. she has never been beaten, never been held, never been broken, never been healed.

she feels up blindly at the sky; traces the silhouettes of the first pinpoint stars. there is beauty in the world, but not so much. poorly faked smiles stick to her face like gum beneath a table, and she can smooth over the prickly anger and ragged discontent with a facade of good naturedness and reasonable happiness.

there is beauty in the world, there is authenticity in life, there is hope for humanity. but on this particular evening when the moon has lost itself in the autumn storm clouds, she aches to inform someone - eyes blazing honest - that it is all not enough.