She spins cartwheels in the rain, her pink shoes, pink palms, pink legs, pink arms and that patch of pink and velvet truffle brown that wink wink winks at me as her toes address the sky and the soft cotton of her skirt brushes her chest.

And when she stops, I try not to look. My eyes fall to the wet concrete, drawing my hair behind it. Splashing as she runs towards me, features demolished, face torn open, but I don’t see it. I can’t look at her until the echo of her eye stops coming onto me. The soft dark damp winking that tells me she’s not naturally red headed.

Her hair clings to her face like a child, each strand becomes a rivulet of blood and her words make no sense, an alto gurgle that makes love to the back of my throat. Her cherry-stained tongue darts out, managing to suffocate all light, even in the middle of the day.