It Won’t Be Me

A count kept in black: heavy tally strokes scored across a field of storm grey and dried red, the marks of someone keeping score of what, or who, has fallen.

The title is the defiance under the arithmetic. Whatever is being counted, collapses, surrenders, names crossed off, the vow stays the same: it will not be me.

A crossword fragment sits half-buried in the wreckage, the puzzle still unsolved, while sprayed shadows pass over the surface like searchlights. Survival here is not pretty. It is counted.

Symbolic language

• Black tally strokes, the score kept, the count survived.
• Dried reds, what the counting cost.
• Sprayed grey passes, searchlights, scrutiny, time moving across the surface.
• The crossword fragment, the unsolved puzzle of getting through.

Everyone keeps a count of something. Hers ends with a vow: it won’t be me.