User blog:UltravioletDragon/Her

This is a bit of a story, but I didn't really want to make it a page, so here it is! This is really personal for me, but as my normal person to share with is the star of this piece, I think you'll understand why I get it out here. Read at your own risk.



I think about her a lot now. Like, a lot a lot. She's always hovering at the edges, and I'm always thinking about how to make her laugh, what she'd think was funny, how to be earnest without being obvious. I sit next to her, if I can, or opposite, and let our legs brush as our teacher leads a discussion on different types of poetry line breaks. I lie next to her as we eat lunch on the hallways floor, me sick from cramps and too tired to shy away, her trying to finish her math homework and ignoring where our bodies press together. My kind of perfect.

She's a dancer and a writer and a musician, though I'm only familiar with one of three. She loves to cook, and when I offer to come visit (casually, as much calm as I can manage) she promises to feed me whenever I show. She teases me for being smart, writes nonfiction like poetry and poetry like she's handing you her heart, her spirit, tangled in metaphor. She's smart, too, even if she doesn't like to say so, doesn't like to act it under all the fun. She steals other peoples' shoes and throws them on top of the bleachers one day, then spends all gym the next day stitching a girl's sandal back together. She took theatre last year, and I can just imagine her filling time with energy, filling a stage without fear. She drew cats with human ears on the teachers' whiteboards and argued with me when I told her they were otters. She laughs all-in, snorty and drawing me to giggles even when I don't know the joke. She wants cute things to be horrifying. She thought cows had six stomachs until I corrected her, but she handled the correction well.

And, yeah, I'm not going to say anything. Probably ever, if I know myself. I can imagine her with another girl and how awful that would make me feel, under a careful silence. But every time she argues with me or lets me sorta-not-really-sneaky snuggle her, takes my cookie or sits beside me, I let myself hope a little. Just a little smidge, but it's enough to live on. And in the meantime, I'll keep thinking about my otter girl.



(Seriously, I dare you to draw a cat with human ears that doesn't look like an otter, though. It's hard.)