Most of All

Lichtenstein "Hopeless"

She wants to do it all and do it perfect. She wants to be the one that saves the world and is rewarded with a ticker tape parade down Fifth Avenue. She wants to stay up late and dance all night. She wants love and respect and someone to hold her hand at the movies. But most of all she just wants to quit crying and get on with life.

When She Came Home

She quit school and dropped out of sight for a couple of years. We thought she might have gone off with some guy cause she was real pretty, with that red hair and those long legs. A real eye-catcher. Course she didn't stay very long with anybody. Soon as they said "marriage" she was out of there. Most folks thought she was afraid of being tied down but I always thought she just had a hunger for new and exciting. She didn't come around to see her mama very often, but when she did, she brought presents.

The One

The sunbaked rocks soothe her sore muscles. Robert's still climbing, determined to reach the peak before midafternoon so he won't have to descend in darkness. She thinks about taking a nap but isn't comfortable being there alone. Recently a young girl went missing and before that two women were found murdered just outside the park. But in her heart she knows this is not what's really bothering her. The truth: her relationship is on the inevitable slide. Robert will become, like the others, a good friend, but not her real love, her last love, the one that will love her for who she is instead of the person they want her to be.

Faces

Faces with open mouths peer from walls; teeth bite into the afternoon. Sunlight creeps through the blinds while dust gathers on the tables, the floor, the walls; she waits for something, anything to break the silence in a world that seldom changes.