She drew me like I mattered, but it got to be too much. I told her to stop one night, mid-thigh on a picture of me just sitting at the table drinking milk and listening to the radio before bed. She didn't really acknowledge me, just sort of sat there and kept shading, beveling the lead into a point. I got up and broke the tip almost in jest, just a little something to get her to stop, but when she took another pencil off the counter in one smooth lull without even looking up, I broke the tip on that one, too, and it got serious. Just drink your milk, baby, she said and reached into the drawer to get another pencil, but I grabbed the whole box and leaned it against the wall, brought my foot down on the middle. The side of her thumb was black from smudging under my calves, so she took it and made two fuzzy wisps on the countertop: my eyebrows, like elongated pussywillows in the distance of a dream. She walked into our room and grabbed the grocery bag with the sketches she's done of me. My ear on an envelope. My toes on a receipt. She handed it to me like a diplomat and went to sleep in our room. I torched them on the stove, lighting them over a burner and then tossing them into an empty paint-can at my feet before getting into bed with her. We hadn't had the argument before, and we never had it again, but there were times, later, when I'd wake up in the night and she'd be sitting across from me with her pencil moving, this time drawing ashes, over and over, every time.
Ryan Werner is a Midwesterner. His favorite food is two sandwiches and his favorite drink is shots. When not providing janitorial services, he plays in several abrasively loud doom metal bands in the southwest corner of Wisconsin.