Spaceships and Racecars, The Boy in Red

Alone in the street, all the eyes in the world magnetized to my body,
I began to scrub the art from my cheeks.
Home wasn’t too far away,
and I couldn’t risk my cover getting blown.
My tears aided me as glitter and paint
flaked and fluttered off my face,
I would thank them later.
A niche in the wall, I exchanged my superhero suit of glitter and pride
for a disguise of greyscale and fear.
It was a losing game trying to cover the love bites on my neck,
they would just have to be covered by more bruises.
An apartment building
far from the light, kept in the darkness.
I fumbled with my keys,
anxiety choking the polluted air in my lungs.
I climbed the fourteen flights of stairs,
unable to bring myself to endure ten minutes of Frank Sinatra and paranoia,
yet the only thing I was spared of
was the Frank Sinatra
and the smell of the boy in red with his beautiful confidence and smile made of vodka on my skin,
sweat off along with my freedom.
My bedroom, decorated in spaceships and racecars,
I walked into my bathroom.
Contraband concealer in my hand,
I tucked it under the father-bought cologne and ripped a square of toilet paper from the almost empty roll,
stuffing it up my swollen and bloody nose.
I stared at my chest,
a masterpiece of bruises of different meanings.
Alone with myself,
I sank down to my knees and sobbed.
Surrounded by spaceships and racecars.

Maya Nordeen is a sophomore at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles Missouri. She has been writing since she was in seventh grade and has recently begun to do it more often. While she isn’t sure whether or not to go into writing as a career, she definitely wants to share her writing with as many people who can lend their ears to her voice. Maya wants to be able to leave this world as someone who left her stain on history, she would even settle for a watermark. She doesn't care, so long as her graffitied name under that unknown, maybe-haunted bridge, will be read out by up-and-coming conspiracy theorists.