sister starlet

omg look more writing. this one is less of a poem and more of a short story (still connected to my 2 previous ones tho - i think ive got a little series going on lol). hope u enjoy :-)

there was a time when i was on the road where i worked in a motel.

i needed a place to stay, but had no money (i had lost it all at that point). the owner was a frightening old man - bald with a perpetually angry expression - but much to my surprise, the two of us were able to make an agreement. if i would wash dishes and clean the bathrooms, i could have a room of my own to stay in. free of charge.

that's how i met her.

she was the prettiest girl i had ever seen. i had never laid eyes upon someone who looked like her. she wasn’t a girl - she was a woman. a woman with wild, blonde hair and striking green eyes. she wore red lipstick and smoked cigarettes. her eyes were lined with black and when she closed them they reflected blue - shimmering sparkles illuminated by the dingy fluorescent lights of the motel hallway.

she caught me staring at her one day and asked me what was so funny. i simply told her that i had never seen anyone like her before, because i truly hadn’t. i asked her if she was an actress. she laughed.

she would invite me to her room when i wasn’t busy cleaning. we would sit on her bed and watch tv. she would drink beer, sing, smoke, brush my hair. i liked it a lot. i had never really spent time (or “hung out” as she called it) with anyone before, especially not like this. it made me feel cool. i was doing something i wasn't supposed to. it was a powerful feeling.

she would always leave around 11 pm, which made me sad. i never knew why she had to go, and she would never tell me.

sometimes, when i would go and see her the next day, she would be wearing more makeup than usual. i could see the outline of a bruise or two on her cheek, her eye, her neck. i didn’t say anything.

“you know,” she said to me one night, as she was doing my makeup (i had asked her to, since my parents never let me wear any - i only was allowed unflavored chapstick), “i like that thing you said about me being an actress. do you really think i could be one someday?”

“yes,” i told her, perhaps too enthusiastically, “you’d be a star.”

she giggled and dusted my cheeks with rosy blush. the lipstick she applied to my pale mouth smelled like vanilla. she kept scolding me for licking it off. i couldn't help it.

we fell asleep a while later, our clownish faces pressed together. i inhaled the scent of her flowery perfume, her hairspray, the nail polish that was still drying on her fingers. the tv was still on, making the darkened room glow a bluish green hue. it was so quiet. i listened to her breathe.

when i woke up the next morning she was gone. this was slightly unusual, but not wholly unexpected. i attentively waited for her to return. a few hours passed. then a day. then two. i was confused - she left all her things behind; her clothes and nail polish and hairspray and makeup. only her favorite red lipstick was missing.

at one point i mustered up the courage to talk to the owner, asking him where she had gone. she had been a customer of his for a long while.

“not sure,” he shrugged, shoving a few corn nuts into his mouth. “she left the other night, ‘round 4 am. you know the kind of stuff she gets into. was bound to get herself into trouble at some point.”

and that was that. i didn’t want to think about the things he said. it couldn’t be true, could it?

i started to tell myself that she left to go to hollywood. she liked my idea of the big screen so much that she had simply left to start her life anew - to be an actress. she was going off to become a star. one that burned so bright that you couldn’t bear to look away. too enticing. too beautiful. a real star.

i hoped that i would see her in a movie someday. i never did.