I once knew this wonderful girl who hated everything. Or more likely, she loved everything too much. Every bit of beauty, bit of life, touched her in the meat. Those places most of us walk around numb protecting. We used to share cigarettes on our breaks when we worked at the leather sex toy company. One time, she was telling me about the guy she was on a date with the night before. As she was telling me how much it could never work, as she was telling me with lights in her eyes, she was delivered flowers. She told him she loved the flowers. He must’ve misheard her. Those were the first break up after the first date flowers that I ever saw. I wish I could say they were the last. We stayed friends for a few years. It’s hard to love someone who burns so hard. It made me love her more.
We stayed up watching MTV’s Real World. We read the same books and argued about gentrification, reverse racism and the authenticity of voices deemed oppressed and who would win the very specific and angry oppression Olympics that she and I both saw and encountered in our respective circles of San Francisco friends. Between us we covered a couple of ethnicities, a few more sexual orientations and a whole bevy of class experiences. Once in a while it backfired, since we were both too stubborn to do anything but fight and pout about how right we were and get indignant with our mid twenties selves.
Finally one day – after she had told me I never had felt any pain. after she wouldn’t stop washing my dishes. after I gave her my nights instead of finding them for myself. I stopped it. I took some space and told her I was leaving to find my own apartment. We played cribbage to seal the deal. To seal the friendship. To seal our own ever after. We were supposed to stay family forever.
She never spoke to me again.
eta - this is a character sketch, more to come about this tragic and wonderful girl in the future
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