She was made of alabaster skin and quarter notes on an A flat scale.

All of her words were bred from hums and unheard prose with a blatant lyrical tint.

She screamed at God that her gift of song was a burden, an axe in her back.

God didn't respond because her words bore no truth, and in an hour she was singing out her soul once more.

Her happiness came and left as it pleased.

She found refuge in her own voice, as did the listeners standing readily outside her window, waiting to hear their blessings in her song.

Her song was pure and beauty and musical silk. The wind and her notes entangled as one...a marriage of air and soprano sound.

But she cried out her brokenness when she was alone, and her voice would crack the earth in half, and her song would create and destroy those who listened, a soft and subtle blow to a half-shattered heart.

And then she and God would converse yet again, and she'd tell Him she loved Him, but she was broken inside. There was quite nothing she had left to give.

And He wouldn't reply because her words were a lie, and she'd sing out her blues with a smile on her face.

She stepped onto a stage, and she hated the lights, so she closed her eyes and drowned out the sound and listened to the wind that was married to her voice and sand out her tune with an angel's touch, and the listeners grew silent with tears.

They felt all of her pain and all of her grace and all of the beauty that lived in her sound.

She never once opened her eyes to see them.

But she smiled because she knew what they'd heard.

And God smiled, too.