You Are Not the Fallen Chandelier

We’d sit listening to rain jumping off the roof. ‘All that speech pouring down, selling nothing.’ She had a slant way of looking at the world that surprised me. I couldn’t tell you about her sadness, how deep it went - she had shadows and rivers like we all do. I’d watch her through a hole in the fence smoking on the kitchen step, looking beyond long grass. She wasn’t making plans for the future I knew that.
‘You’re not the fallen chandelier,’ she said to me one time. I took this to mean that she could still see some light left in me, despite all I’d done. I was grateful.
‘You’re the guru of the street,’ I said to her, ‘like you got dipped in gold.’