A friend hails her across the crowded room.  (Friendliness is too broad a concept. She doesn’t shoot well from the hip.) Quick introductions are made. 

                                  ***

She writes down each morning how she should behave each evening. The stranger interlopes right in to her fluorescent lit empty house anyway. The house she takes such care to fill, word by dim word. 

                                   ***

Her hollow memory registers something faintly. Misery’s always blank and white. Meanwhile, the hard black leather of her heels draws her at once straight and weak. (Pain’s a shameful and confusing distraction.)

“It’s okay to need love,” she tells herself.