She woke each morning with a blackened eye, bones of her socket under water pressure, veins like pinched hoses bulging. She thought the sidewalk is no safe place to sleep. That much gin may cause some fight. Or blackout on an attack while she dreams on cardboard. She walked to the park bathroom to read the patterns: black to red to blue. Was it a large fist? Did it have a ring? Once she was afraid of the ghost aggressor, or what catastrophe she had caused gin-drunk and under dust.

She began to appreciate the pain on waking, the chaos of colors orbiting around her whites. How the body pays. How she makes it pay for persisting.