THERE WAS NO RIGHT WAY TO DESCRIBE XIRA.
she was a rose in a field of daisies. gold and scarlet petals danced upon her hair, curls that slide down then her neck and curved around her ears. eyes so emerald, lips so pimk, a laugh so loud it rumbled through her chest. she had skin of honey sap from summer trees. boys wanted a lick of her sweet, sweet skin, but xira would open her heart to the palms of girls who tenderly kiss xira's broken pieces. girls who said, i love you, xira. but would not mean it. xira loved and loved, cried and cried, and became a goddess, palms clenched with divine myths, in her small town.
THERE WAS NO WRONG WAY TO DESCRIBE XIRA.
"what a slut," drunken slurs wounded her skin. not nectar or honey, but worn leather. xira kissed too many girls, fell in love too easily, slept with too many girls. girls, girls, girls. a queer, she was what was wrong with this small town. xira's skin was too dark, her lips too red, her heart too reckless. she was a hurricane, pounding, pumping, tearing hearts and souls and devastating. a winter's cold tinged with flesh upon flesh, the scratch of her nails in your skin with the leak of venom.
now, as she thought upon those words whispered about her, gobbled in the mouths of wolves and lions, she smiled. her hand was wriggled in warm, summer sweet peaches. the sickly juices stuck to her dark gums, dripping down her chin. the ocean's fingers coiled and uncoiled around her toes, little teeth gobbling her feet.
astrid stood beside her, dark eyes trained on the endless azure splayed before them. behind them, the sun leaked goldens and roses, barely licking the mountain hills. astrid's mom and dad were laughing, clinking wine glasses with the guests. summer was ending, slumbering deep in her bones, and xira still felt like this.
felt hollow.
she was not what they said, she determined. she was not some goddess, not some hurricane, but a girl with an abyss of sharks and wilted flowes.
astrid wrapped a strand of red hair around her freckled fingers. xira glanced at her best friend, at the contours of her sharp face, the cheekbones, the plump lips. astrid grinned then, a grin that had boys on her knees.
and sometimes xira herself.
astrid said, voice of ripped paper and scrawled pencils, "you look like you're goin' to rip someone's throat out."
"i am, and it's going to be yours." xira said.
"oh, please," astrid said. "tell me what i did to deserve such attention."
xira tipped her head back, laughing. it fell upon the waves, falling away. drowning. "i'm thinking about lilliana." she lied. too easy.
astrid scoffed. "that bitch doesn't deserve your attention, why are you even with her?"
"i love her."
"no, you don't. you love her body."
xira frowned. "is there a difference?"
"you're terrible."
xira shrugged, that hollow piece behind her ribs pumping. she sucked on the juicy fruit against her lips. "is dianna comin' home?"
at this, astrid's beautiful features fell apart. "i don't know. you know how she's been." she bit her top lip. "but min is."
"hmm." xira hummed softly. school began in a matter of warm-fading days and endless nights. lakeside, they school she and her friends attended, would be gasping the last breaths of summer loving. unfortunately, lakeside oozed a certain mundanity that ate and gobbled at xira for years. it wasn't like the school was bad, ( the teachers were nice enough, ditto for the students ) but each of them lived in this little bubble of now, that none thought of the future.
xira said, "juliet died this summer."
"that sucks." astrid said, pitiless. one of the main reasons they were friends. xira snapped her teeth at any pity thrown her way. as if she were weak. she was not weak.
however, it sucked that the last time she would ever see her mother, was when she was on her deathbed.
xira wondered if the ocean could swallow her whole. eat her alive. devour her being.
please.
