The Watercolour Girl

she was a bright slash of
brilliant crimson,
once.

.

she has tattoos the colour
of watercolours and she
points and tells me stories of
girls lost in washed-
out worlds.

and she says
the world is our canvas and
we are the paintbrushes.
she uses emerald green and
cobalt blue and permanent
red to paint
through the ups and downs of
her canvas.

but then, one day,
her colours turned to dusty rose
and earthy brown and
watery yellow ochre.
she painted weeping eyes
and drip-dripping
paintings of
sad, beautiful
faces.

now, she watches out the
window with a paintbrush
in her hand and a
splattered shirt over her
figure, and she
paints barely-blue
raindrops on the
glass.

.

she became a weeping
watercolour girl,
too pale on the canvas.