Rejected, and I am surprised? For a moment I had hope and I wore it around my shoulders like a shawl. Artist, artist, yes.... but of course the letter came later. Declined, how polite of them. Ah, well I am used to such an easy hurt, I hadn't carried hope in some time. It's weave felt good as it drifted around me. I was brave like in the old days before I had been ripped down to nothing. I wish he could have seen me then before I sunk back down to what I have become. I was so free once and believed as the young do, that everything was within my reach.