and girls were so pretty. there was the effortless girls who had the wide eyes, the freckles, the hair pulled back. who didn’t wear makeup and always wore a smile, who knew you needed help before you asked it; the sunshine and picnic girls, who you felt carried spring with them. and the mountaintop girls, strong bodies and fierce in their bones, drinking green tea and teaching you yoga, who watched you and made sure you ate well, who knew what it was to fight for a body that listened. and the soft heather girls who knew nature and spoke gently and would show you how to hear the light hitting a lake, who would listen no matter how long the story was and somehow know what to say. and the girls who were red moons, a dangerous flash of teeth and darkness, an excited wildness that came in black leather and spoke of nights you ache when you remember, who would look at you and pin you to a board for a moment, so that for once you felt important. and the summertime girls, wide smiles and makeup that never smudged, who could make you feel as if you lived inside a photograph, who brought the feeling of the fourth of july to every party, who convinced you to come to the party. and of course the rain girls, who didn’t need an explanation, but simply were, in a way that when you made eye contact with them you knew somehow about sorrow and also about the safety of staying home.
and girls. girls in their sweatpants in the aisle of a supermarket looking lost. girls staring down their teacher, demanding the grade they deserve. girls with their hands on the wheel, with their hands passing lotion to another, with their hands in their hair. girls upside down on the couch and spine straight in business meetings and body curled around a book. girls who were upended libraries, who were railroads, who were a choir’s last note, who were carols, who were snow, who were a racing track, who glowed or who gave warmth or else sewed cold, who bit hard, who laughed loud, who fell asleep on trains, who rode bikes in rain.
and then there was you.
