here

I found it.

Found my quiet place.






It's nice here. I can bead my pearls on their little bit of twine aroundaroundaround my wrist and right into my veins because however hard I try to cover up the hole with my jacket sleeve they always find a way in.
It's dark in there, I think. Maybe they're sad because there's no light inside my insides for them to steal and twist and bend. 'Cause I don't have no light…

Right?



No, no light.


But that's okay, because light is brightbrightbright and no, don't like it poking and prying and burning my eyelids and-

and and and-



…That's okay. It's darker in my quiet place. The only light's from the pearls and the colors they paint on my fingertips.

They stole them, though.

Stole them from the sky. Had to have, because that's the only place I saw them before, up there all sherbet puffs of pink and blue and cream-

And now they're gone. They're not above me anymore, no, because now that's just white and white and everything's white so white except the pearls.

My pearls.


I lost them, though. I think. 'Cause they went inside me again and didn't come back out. Maybe they're lost. They're going to be mad that I lost them. Probably.

Sometimes we wait, me and my pearls on a string, sometimes we just kinda sorta almost barely hope that maybe just maybe someone'll stick their heads down into our quiet place and call us home again,





And then it won't be quiet anymore.