fading photograph

by Linda M. Crate

i'm not pretty as a picture. i'm that crimson lipstick stain on the sun, the stone skipped on the breath of a rosemary sunset breathing orange. the smudge you find on your old photograph, the rotten banana on the counter, the dead lily whose frayed petals are past the point of no return. you'll find me on the subway, in the back of your mind's darkest recesses, in line at subway, breathing cigarette smoke into the atmosphere of lonely bars full of overweight drunk men too tired to care or fight. i bend, break, collide with the moon, burn in the sun, scatter in the wind each day a different order but the same routine. when i look in the mirror, i see the black wolf smirking back at me. i am the monster my father was. I have his claws, the same sharp fangs, the exact shade of silver sword tongue that slashes to pieces any that disagree with me. i am a woman in a man's universe, one that is different from the others. so that means i'm even less than oblivion because women don't matter here. perhaps, they never did. eve was the only woman that people seem to care about or mary. i'm neither the virgin nor the whore, just something in-between. so, of course, that means i'm charred black feathers of fallen angels turning amber in the sun. thanks for reminding me of all my scars and failures, i needed that salt thrown into my wounds yet again. needed to savor the taste of regret.