statue, paper, crayon, desperate

there was a statue of a poet in the town square. as a child she would stand before him and read the words engraved in the stone. she'd read them fast sometimes or sound them out slowly, kissing every word as it passed her lips. he had died a hero for his words (or had simply been the most famous man to ever live in the small town). she loved the way he looked towards the sky - like there was never anything to fear.

at home she would lay on the floor and sketch. she would take more pleasure in the blackening of her finger tips than in whatever evolved on the paper. she would smell the crayons and line them up, in darkening shades or in alphabetical order or sometimes in the order that clashed the most - pinks with orange, red with brown, a vomit of colours before her. she would pack them away, the sticks of wax, like bars of gold under her torn mattress.

she would take her drawings to the square and hold them out. she would tell him what they were. the desperate mother, clinging to her sick child. the town fair, where her brother and she had danced with puppets. the men with guns that stood by the city walls. a picture of her, wearing the green hat that one of them had given her. she would stand for hours looking at the statue, the pictures dangling by her side. she would poke her chest out like his.
'there is nothing to fear,' she would whisper, as she looked to the sky.

slowly, the town filled with more men and more guns.