It was the middle of October and JUSTINE was in Los Angeles for work. JUSTINE was filming her latest advertising campaign somewhere between the city of Encino and the Marriott Courtyard off the corner of a strip mall in the town of Thousand Oaks, California.

In a long flowing, delicately checkered green printed dress with fabric who flew to the lengths of her black vans white laces, JUSTINE followed her team of co-workers out the sliding door of a white production van. It was the second to last day of a seven day shoot spilt between two weeks. It was the morning after, The Man had gone too far. It was the morning JUSTINE gave up on the first series of dreams she imagined for herself.


The first sun of day after her world view split in two. JUSTINE was walking out the door and into the belly of the beast, for one final day of discomfort controlled by the men around her. It was the day JUSTINE would venture to view The Little Yellow Dollhouse that sat beneath the over pass on the corner of Los Feliz and Silverlake.


It was the day JUSTINE grew wings,
the day after she got her twin scars.



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As the clock clicked on dawn, JUSTINE rose with damp cheeks, wet from the fire boiled tears that dripped from the fountain of her dark centers. An awakening by virtue of a wrecking ball reckoning. JUSTINE watched as her faith went running out of the room, with nothing but a white sheet covering the body of a dark, unwanted soul. The only thing lit up were the lights above the hotel bathroom’s mirror. Alone in a lonely place, touching the branding on her face.



Like the sun’s kiss tattooing your face - a scar to stand the test of time. An everlasting marking, proof through all the pain and suffering - you fit enough laughter and joy in between the creaks of light. A wrinkle on your face, proving all that you’ve been through - to be true.




In the dark of night,
a star’s flame was put to dust
and a new idea was born.









Helpless at the first crack of oval openings, JUSTINE unpins the glowing gates of her small screen’s secret code and clicks on the portal to where words are spoken like weather: the application of the blue bird flocking.





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Breaking news, a bookmarked spot on X told the winds of the day. JOSEPHINE reads the sign infront of her “real estate companies have been running sex trafficking scandals by telling prospective renter’s there’s a lockbox on the door if they want to check it out on their own and cautioning to not be alarmed if there are worker’s on-site.”


JOSEPHINE thinks how familiar, or rather peculiar. How those sequencing of event’s are the same steps the property manager detailed for viewing of The Little Yellow Dollhouse that sits on a corner between Los Feliz and the underpass of Silverlake. Barely alive as it is, the morning after the car crash and now she’s got more bad luck to deal with.


JOSEPHINE gathers the bottom side of her favorite green dress, and pulls it downward until it flows to her white socks. Like a lightning strike, chills run down her spine as she slips on her black sneakers. The fear sinks into her bones, a clay shape hardening as she thinks -




“I might die before I ever get
the chance to get love right.”





With glossy vision, JOSEPHINE takes out her curling iron and she fine tunes the layers of black frizz that grow like spider’s legs when she lays to rest against sheets of linen, It’s the first time in 1O days she’s felt the need to prove she’s beautiful.


It’s the first time in 1O years she’s lost her faith in men and surrendered to The Man’s wrong doing. There was no consolement at the scene of the crime, JOSEPHINE stood alone in the blink of an eye.


JOSEPHINE looks into the flattened image of what a crystal balls meant to tell you - the tunes we hummed before disco dancing beneath the broken ball of mirrors.


JOSEPHINE saw the image of herself through the worlds destructive lens.





[To Be Continued]





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Closing statement:

To look into the empty ambiance of a void of course heart and see yourself in all your glory - is to do anything at all.

To know the secret of the wind - is to know everything all at once.

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