The Real Mona Lisa

Reagan Johnson

She was a shattered mirror, slowly picking up the pieces of herself but getting shards stuck in her hands and feet during the process. Each remark slashing a bigger wound in her already throbbing palms. Her arms and legs were painted with a galaxy of faded blues and browns. Her body, her mind, her everything was his masterpiece-yet he was an accidental composer. Each word he spoke, each earthquake he started, each threat he roared was a stroke of paint down the side of her mind. To her peers it was invisible ink, disappearing- like a secret message - just as fast as it had arrived… but to her it flowed brighter and brighter each day. Like neon pain at Lollapalooza or those green glow sticks she used to crack open as a kid. The dye came from his mouth and seeped its way into her ears. It rolled around inside her mind and out her ears until that was the only thing she could see. Until it was the only thing she could feel. Until she herself was a glow stick. He made her into his masterpiece. Painting a solar system of his words onto her canvas of a body. Everything he said, she was. Each word was a stroke of a new color. He was Da Vinci, and that's why they called her his Mona Lisa.