Fire and Rain [🗸]

6. rainbow pins and times square

SHE LETS ME KEEP IT.

The rainbow bucket hat, I mean.

When we'd returned back to the motel after Pride, I'd tried to hand it back to her, but she didn't take it. She'd simply looked me over and allowed her shoulders to fall into a shrug. "It looks better on you."

It looks better on you.

Then she'd walked off and flung herself onto her bed without much of a second though. Meanwhile, I've spent every hour since then psychoanalyzing the fuck out of that moment.

This moment in time isn't any different.

Josiah, Sadie, Azul, Zahra and I are pressed into one of the clothing stores on fifth avenue. The Greenport Gang's down one due to Elliot spending the day with his boyfriend. I'm not certain anyone has any mind to buy anything, but there's something about obsessing over unattainable things that draws us in.

Each piece of clothing seems to have its own character. The suburban mom, the queer nerd, the artist. I can see them all as my eyes drift from clothing to clothing. With Pride in the atmosphere, there's an array of vibrant colors that pull me in.

It's strange that it's the black-and-white pin that draws me in. It's a white background, with a tiny little word written in the middle: pride. No frills, not much colors, just the little word against the contrasting background.

There's rainbows everywhere, yet the first thing I notice is the monochrome.

It's $1.99— ironically (or unironically) called a "rainbow pin". Simple, subtle. Not too over-the-top as though it knows it can't take too much space. It's there and careful and completely as it is and nothing more. And something about that simplicity has me coming closer to take it in.

I sense Zahra's presence before I see her. Her hands are tucked into oversized jeans, hair pulled into a wavy bun as her gaze follows mine. "You've been staring at that pin for a long-ass time." She glances over at me. "Do you want it?"

My shoulders fall into a shrug. I can't formulate sentences on a good day, especially when it comes to her. I don't know why I adore the little pin so much. Maybe it's because there's something about that small pride written in the center of it that's filled with some sort of resilience and strength. 

It pulls me in even with everything that I've never quite been able to unlearn, even from growing up in a house where gay wasn't even uttered aloud, like a bad word. Like this great taboo. A curse word that isn't supposed to exist.

It was never gays are going to hell it was simply never an acknowledgement of queerness.

I think I'm drawn to things that can burn me. Drawn to Pride even though it was never mentioned in my household, have a history with Zahra Aziz, who is the epitome of flames that you dare not touch.