She Used to be a Wallflower and Now She Is a Raver

-What will I do?
-Well, what are you interested in doing? Other than author and rockstar. Let’s pretend those aren’t options.
-Princess?

It is summer in our school, summer in the city. Tired hippies pull guitars along the ground to a decent patch of sunlight. Hipsters swap spit under trees. There are doves in our arms.

He tasted like dirt and water. Mud in my mouth. I leave you, am sucked back in. I have been swallowed. Everything in the morning is wet. Everything in our mourning.

Fell into a ditch, slammed my knees into gravel. Bleeding and bruised, holding hands with Bitter Boy, feeding him hummus and pita. All the bodies pounding into each other were beautiful.

French boy says, “Are you waiting for your girlfriend?” I see the side of his profile bathed in a hazy glow, light diffused from the lamp by the door, and the discoball of the rave behind us. Someone has projected “Johann Sebastian Bach” over the wall graffiti. Things quiver and pulse. We have bubbles in our mouths.

I say, “Yes,” and he looks sad.
“Do you ever,” he says.
“Boys?” I say. He looks down.
“I’m not looking at your ---,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I say.

I glow in the dark. Eager fingers reach forward to touch my circuiting.