“Picture Book” by Xandra Sky

   2018 Winner, High School Poetry

She painted my legs
While I wrote on her neck
One artist
To another

We created one another
Her with each paint stroke
I with each written word

My torso took form
A tornado of sketches
Mixed with pastel

Her back the shape of poems
Shoulders descriptions
Of loving touches

Her paint ran out
At the same moment
My pencil broke

I looked at her eyes
One read “warning”
The other was blank

She looked at mine
Pictures of hanging men
Filled my pupils

I knew then
I would never get to
Finish her story

She knew then
She would never get to
Finish coloring my lines

The next time I saw her
She was with someone else
Who was erasing my words

The next time I saw me
I was half of a colorful galaxy
Half of an empty book