It was Friday, and the Girl and the other girl laid purple on sidewalk cement under the hot summer wind. Knees grazed, they sat on the street curb, panting, lungs rolling in their throats desperate for a spoonful of air.
Next to the other girl, the Girl watched her breathe – the other girl’s body soft under the lamppost glow, her chest rising like floating driftwood. The weight of the other girl’s breathing, heavy and hoarse, seemed to override the entirety of the Girl, like the force of the other girl’s breath held more purpose than her’s.
They killed away the rest of the evening by counting ants and braiding daisies stems. The Girl’s mind quickly became a machine that jotted down every small detail of the other girl – her tanned shoulders heavy against the street post, her messy hair mixed with weeds and grass clippings, her angry-red acne, her mango bruised knees, her hands that made the Girl’s body burn…
Instinctively, the Girl reached out with a desperation that seemed to devour her, calling for the other girl’s name. The other girl turned, and laughed in response. Because it was what she did. Fill the air with noise, invade everything silent. It didn’t matter that her laughter was ugly, cracked, or impulsive. It was raw, untouched, true to the person it came from. It was unforgiving, a fist pushed through everything sad in the world.
And so when the Girl heard the other girl laugh, she felt her heart crunch like aluminum foil. She had known by now how easy it was for her to hurt for everything the other girl did. If she could, she would rope moons, dry oceans, and drown deserts for the other girl. Skin her heart alive and pull at her tendons to string the most beautiful instrument for her. Wrestle angels and demons, do the impossible to carry the world in the bareness of her hands and settle for the tiniest of planets to say “Here, here, look what I have for you. Take it all and run.”
And if the other girl refused, the Girl would bleed herself a million times more. Make life out of every pulsing cell of her body to love her infinitely as much. Travel through every life form until she evolved into the one where the other girl looked her way.
But in this lifetime, the one where the Girl is laying with the other girl on the tiniest patch of sunlight, the other girl is laughing with daisies in her hair and in the same lifetime, the Girl makes the decision to lean over to kiss the other girl – because how could she not? – and the other girl sees the girl leaning, and pulls in closer as if a magnetic weight paralyzed her to. Under the looper moths, the Girl’s tongue becomes warm like a moving animal in the other girl’s mouth, and they both become colorful enough to dull even the brightest of stars. Together, they are the hottest shades of pink behind the most violent of sunsets. The cicadas are crying, the daisies spinning to the ground like clipped clovers and the girl and the other girl hold each other like it’s the last thing they know and the first thing they live for.
Eva is a youth poet from Burlingame, California. As a poet, her work has been recognized by the Scholastics Art and Writing Competition, and featured across The Offing, Cathartic Literary Magazine, Catcher Zine, Elan Literary Magazine, and KALW radio. She is also the founder of Footprints on Jupiter, a teen literary magazine. When she’s not writing, she’s either rewatching Avatar or trying her hand at philosophy!