sometimes the pain inside her is so great and numb that it bloats her out from the insides, makes her face puffy and her skin shiny and taut. i believed in her. she looks out into the world from a window at street level and all she can see is the trash everyone above her has left behind through iron gates painted over black and brown and red and hard black enamel again. it reeks even in the winter, it just piles up until all she can see is the colony of rats weeding their way through and out. even they are desperate to move but cannot leave for fear of survival: what will they eat? where will they live? hounded. but as she draws thick red gloss across her bottom lip, she promises herself that she’ll get out of here, maybe california, maybe nevada, where it’s sunny all year round. she’s had enough of this, she’s had enough of the city. it only breaks you.