Outside All The Painted Lines

She pulled her sweater off
to cool down beneath that tree,
and just sat there while she laughed
at what was left of me.
I was unable to blink
a single eye. She called me over
to her side and I stood there
looking down at her crossed
arms not allowing any drift
towards anything outside
our perfect shade.
“You know I don’t care if you see,”
she told me laughing quietly,
but at this point I didn’t want
to prove her right.
Down the road came two headlights
like orbs that wander aimless
through the forests.
They passed us by without a flicker
and the street became our best path
back to somewhere.
I stared off without thinking and before
I could turn back around
she was running toward the birch
trees at the edge of where the forest
met the clearing.
Her paleness made a ring of light
against the bleeding shadows
that she wanted to expose
the darkest corners of.
She stopped before she reached their line
and pointed back, where I had stayed,
at her sweater draped over the tree roots
that went deeper than we ever
could have guessed.