I wonder about you sometimes. We knew each other when we were much younger. We were always so different. I used to sit on the cold flat top of the pine green electrical box in the schoolyard. You would stand on the side, your long frame keeping you at eye level with my swinging knees. Your hair was long, stained a dull purple long before I met you and your clothes were tight. My hair was a black mass of tightly wound springs engulfed by the loose clothing I wore like a shield.

In the end, maybe those differences were irrelevant. When I think about it, we never quite spoke to each other. I would listen to you, welding my dried and broken lips into a dark brown line. You would speak, voice hoarse from hours of inhaling gaseous calamity from pale white sticks you stole from your older brother. The chocking bitter smell mixed in with the reek of the sticky strawberry lip-gloss you always snatched up from the dollar aisle. You never mentioned a father but you always had a scathing comment on the woman who gave birth to you. I don’t think you liked her very much. In fact, I don’t think you liked anyone very much. You probably spoke to me because I never dared say anything in response. Then again, nobody seemed to like you either. The teachers and other children all said you were bad news. I didn’t care. You were my opposite. You were unafraid to laugh when the other children cried. You told people off when they shoved you. I was invisible to the world, the child some teacher forgot even existed. You scorched the world and absolutely nobody could ignore your. I thought you were fascinating, a blinding explosion in the filth of our broken school.
I wonder about you sometimes. We knew each other when we were much younger. You were always so different from me. I used to sit on the cold top of the pine green electrical box in the schoolyard. You would stand on the side, your long frame keeping you at eye level with my swinging knees. Your hair was long, stained a dull purple long before I met you and your clothes were tight. My hair was a black mass of tightly wound springs engulfed by the loose clothing I wore like a shield.
In the end, maybe those differences were irrelevant. When I think about it, we never quite spoke to each other. I would listen to you, fusing my dried and broken lips into a dark brown line. You would speak, voice hoarse from hours of inhaling gaseous death from the white and burnt yellow sticks you stole from your older brother. The chocking bitter smell hid behind the reek of the sticky strawberry lip-gloss you always snatched up from the dollar aisle. You never mentioned a father but you always had a scathing comment on your mother. I don’t think you liked her very much. In fact, I don’t think you liked anyone very much. You probably only spoke to me because I never dared say anything in response. Then again, nobody seemed to like you either. The teachers and other children all said you were bad news. I didn’t care. You were my opposite. You were unafraid to laugh when the other children cried. You told people off when they shoved you. I was invisible to the world; the child some teachers forgot was even present. You scorched the world and absolutely nobody could ignore your existence. I thought you were fascinating, a blinding explosion in the filth of our broken school.
I knew you for a year and a half. I just listened and you spoke. It was late fall when you hugged me for the first and last time. I had just climbed off the electrical box; carefully maneuvering to ensure my head didn’t shatter open on the cracked black concrete. You moved quickly and wrapped your arms around me, an action I never expected from the girl who punched a boy two grades above us. It was stiff and awkward, unnatural compared to the tight squeezes and laughing smiles between the other girls in our grade. For just a few seconds, my face was pressed into your jacket, which was so worn that it in some places it was a cracked grey and in others black. Of course, it reeked of that old bitter smell and fake strawberries. You grinned; teeth stained a pale yellow, and strode off with the rest of the seventh grade class. You disappeared into the mass of seventh grade heads, as I stood frozen, burning the image into my memory. In my mind you have never existed past that moment, long purple hair disappearing into the crowd. I never saw you again.