Portrait of Anna at 17

She would rather stare out the passenger side window of a car, than drive.
She likes the way you sound in headphones,
But she will steal sounds from the air, before they fall complacent on your ears.
She will complain while she picks you up, and dusts the rubble from your tan suede jacket
She will always save your life
But she is not composing poetry to the sound your voice makes, or choreographing the dances your bodies will make as you walk towards each other on busy sidewalks.
She tears the labels off water bottles when they are half empty.
She thinks about you
She keeps her secrets behind gaudy red and orange patches, sewn to her blue jeans.
She walks down suburban streets after midnight,
The street lights extinguish as she walks below
She is wearing the shoes that she wrote your name on in red Sharpie. Letters now scuffed away in a pink smudge.
And she thinks about running in a monsoon, and your hair, soaked with rainwater curling around her fingers, as you wait under the overpass.
She goes outside and tilts her chin into the mist and walks into the day with your name on her toungue.