14

Coke for breakfast; cola in the kitchen and a little caine she'd stashed away, this day, another day, another one just the same. Whiskey will shape her words tonight and smoke will mellow her voice. Or harden it, not sure but you like the way it sounds; she's fourteen. She binges on the adulation then fingers her throat, purging until she's empty inside and she is.

Her words are worth a thousand pictures of her plaster-cast painted smiling face because each one is part of the puzzle; each word has its place and when you listen and not just listen but understand then you will know that it is raining on the other side of the house, it's cold even though you are sitting in a square of sunshine on the carpet staring at the blue blue sky out of the only window in the room. The dog is basking too and you're reading a book and it would be so easy for you to just stand up and open the back door and stick your hand out and feel the tears that slide down her cheeks at night but instead you turn the stereo up and adore the voice of a woman who is singing to you through a child's mouth.