In the dream, we are walking on a road that smells of home and honey. The sky smiles with pink and blue teeth above us. We’re fifteen again, waiting for something that we both know will not arrive—a man? A memory? Whatever it is, we know it is not coming. We know that we do not have time. We walk.
In the dream, your hair is still dyed beach-blonde. Just like Marilyn, you had told me, bent over the sink as you wrung out your roots. You always wanted to be beautiful. Desire—de sidire—from the stars. I think about that as I look at you: your cat-eyeliner, your salmon lips. ‘Star’ rings right.
In the dream, we’re seventeen, fresh out of a town we’ve called our own our entire lives. You—bag full of brochures about France, Italy, Spain, a pocket filled with cigarettes. Me—waiting tables, scribbling moons on the back of a leather notebook. You tell me about the rivers in Madrid and the cafes in Paris, but I’m too busy making a list: emerald eyes, blood-red nails, blueberry perfume. You say I never listen to you.
Fourteen, and the world is a fortress guarded by discount nail polish and Teen Vogue magazines. In another house, your mother sips on half-warm pina coladas and waits for your father’s return. In my room, I teach you how to twist mud-thick curls into French braids. Like this—knuckles bone-white, fingers tight against my scalp. See? All better. My hair: coal-dark. Yours: straw-like. You could do wonders with this, I whisper, turning my gaze to the mirror across us.
In the mirror, I look past our reflection, past the pool of light gathering at the base of the white dresser, and think of secrets. Secret—secretus, to separate, set apart. Perhaps what I felt for you—all those years sitting by the campfire, trading jokes at a diner that thinned of patrons every year—perhaps they were glass between us.
In the dream, we are thirteen, and suddenly, you turn to me and say: “Race you all the way!” And then you’re running, bolting full-speed down the street, past the small trees and the beat-down cars, and you’re laughing, and laughing, and laughing. In another life, another city, I wait for you in a room you will never return to. But on the page, before I wake—you’re there. You run again, and again, and again, but you stay right in place. Your hair glints in the dimness of dusk.
Here, where nothing is lost. Here, where sleep swallows the years. Here, the words run across paper, Os and Ls slanted, bleeding.
Bella Majam (16) studies Creative Writing at the Philippine High School for the Arts. Besides writing, her passions include retweeting Arcane fanart and annoying her cat, Salmon. Her work has previously appeared in Halu-Halo Journal. You can follow her @beelaurr on Instagram.
