With Painted Words

Do Not Walk This Way

by Salena Casha

Steps can be counted, measured, numbered,

Written down on paper with the important scrawl

Of a mathematical epiphany.

 

The twilight remembers the steps she took

As she trundled down the boulevard

Drunk on the starlight,

Vaguely recalling her mother’s warning:

Do not walk alone at night.

 

She did not pause at the caution sign,

The blue glow of the moon

Weaving a halo above her head,

Claiming her as one of its children

Who walked the streets alone.

 

The night’s messenger,

His owl eyes unblinking,

Saw the way she played in the shadows

Of the street and chose to follow her, his steps beating a

Half-rhythm across the pavement.

 

He witnessed that ballet and

Blamed her last number on the way

Her feet danced across the asphalt,

Her innocence humming in her shoes,

Staining her body with crimson.

 

And the stars recall the final steps she took,

Numbering her life as just another journey completed,

Another journey stopped too soon.