Xylene, Toluene, Urethane

 He sat across from her in the predawn darkness watching her drawing slender girls.

"Why do you like drawing girls?" he asked her.

"I have this idea," she said, her short eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "I want to draw myself, but I think I'm not good enough. I'm missing something. I need to practice more, so I draw these girls, because I am a girl, also."

"What are you missing?" he asked. "What do you need to practice?"

"Well," she said, putting down her pen, "see, there's this certain awareness I have of this true form of self." She looked up from her drawing, her eyes dark as ink. "I mean myself and it is not something that I could bear to live with daily, and although I am not afraid of being vulnerable to anything," she paused, fiddling with the port in her chest, "I am most afraid of someone other than myself learning my purer form of self because then I am afraid that they would be able to cripple my identity."

He nodded, settling back on the couch. Watching her made his heart hurt.

"Anyway," she continued, "I need more practice. I guess mostly with the colors. The colors aren't right."