The Queen Who Crowns Herself in Neon Silence

I sit on a crate of plastic orange, the only throne this alley will ever offer me, and I do not feel like I am waiting for anyone. The graffiti behind me screams in ten colors—tagged hearts, half-erased faces, the city's whole unfiltered diary—and yet none of it touches me. That is my power: to be surrounded by a million voices and still hear only my own pulse.
They think the mask hides me. It does not. The mask lets me choose exactly how much of myself to give. My gloves are lacquered black, my stockings climb high like promises kept for no one but me, and when I cross my legs on this worn step, I am not posing for a stranger's camera. I am holding court in a kingdom of one.
There was a man once who said I looked lonely here. He did not understand that loneliness is only what the world calls solitude when it has nothing to give me. So I let him be wrong. I let the night keep its cool, wet breath against my ankles while I decide, slowly and without apology, that I am enough. If love ever finds this corner of the street again, it will have to kneel first.
Until then, the neon hums, the paint chips fall like slow snow, and I remain—unbroken, unasked-for, and gloriously alone.

Editor: Soloist