Keep Art Alive :: “Blue Girl” :: Art by Kelly Haigh

“When I am sure the rain has ended,
the blooms have gone,
Everyone killed by the morning frost.
Was a cactus blooming there as you watched the Native boy?”

This desert life cracks and collapses at her feet. The dry air, swirling around into dust clouds that grey her skin, her hair, her dreams. She bleeds language, a gaping wound where her voice should be, now just a trickling silence. They ask her questions, one-by-one, blinding her with a suspect’s headlight.

“When did you last see him?”
“When did you last love him?”
 “When did he throw you away?”

Your eyes widen, brown turning to blue, trying to scream in a teardrop. But all that comes out is sand. You cup your hands around the side-of-the-road cacti that someone brought in to the station; to add color, to add substance, to add one more act of violence. And you were violent – once. You used to scream. You used to rain salt water from each eye into the earth, watering your exteriors, healing the ground with your pain.

“He did this to me“, your eyes try to say. Wide and blue, dry as the air, cracking in the harsh accusing light, bleeding instead of speaking.

The Painted Desert :: 10,000 Maniacs