Paint

She had failed her math test. When she got home there was a note on the table that said her mom would be out until 7. Four hours of freedom. Wild freedom. She was a wild woman, leader of the pack, queen of the jungle. She lay down on the couch and howled, mumbled chants she remembered from somewhere, vague, dream-like words. She turned on the TV and blasted the volume so she could feel the floor shaking.

Then she got our her paints. She took off her jacket, took off her shirt. She shivered in the cold. Then she squirted some color on her hand and slathered it across her stomach. She painted birds on her arms. She smeared a rainbow on her cheek. She put dots on each vertebrae of her spine. She was alive, she was pulsating with light and rhythm and feeling. Society wanted to numb her with the injection of those red marks on her paper. Society wanted her to wallow in her shame until it consumed her, until it was her only motivation.

But she refused.
She knew the injection was nothing more than a sugar pill.
She knew it was all in her mind.
She knew that nothing could kill her soul unless she let it.