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‘It shall be a monstrous occasion if we simply sit on the edge of this mattress all day. We’ll fuck as much as we can to numb loneliness with ecstasy, then we’ll go insane.’ She rips the ballpoint pen from my fingers, I’m ignoring her; she doesn’t like to be ignored. I run out of ink. ‘Wouldn’t you rather write in pink baby? You’ve been feeling so sassy lately. I can tell by the way your naked ass reaches for me when I make you wait.’ I say nothing. I keep writing. Pinks and purples make me high. Spring sticks on the back of my tongue like a song I haven’t sung yet. ‘I want to sing!’ I scream suddenly, breaking her silence and mine. ‘I want the ocean! I want to jump on Jade, throw her sweet frame on a ferry and sail away. I want my toes sinking into her unfulfilling tides. ‘Stay!’ Then she goes away. I kick and scream, like the bratty little baby that I am. I don’t care. I am more alive by having known her again. I hold my breath; I cannot breathe. I reach. She recedes. I try to scream, nothing comes out. I swallow her. She tastes of the sea. She steps behind me. My entire body is shaking wildly. I don’t turn around. I know she’s near. She wraps her fingers around my tummy and rests her chin on my shoulder. ‘Stay’ she whispers. ‘Turn around. Remember childhood. Lets go crazy together! Let us be! We could be all there is. We can be nameless numberless fleshy playful things. We could be only colors; I’ll be pink and you’ll be purple.’

‘I’ll be Juniper. You’ll be Jade.’ 

‘I’ll be difficult and you will live to embrace me. You will learn, in chasing the darkness in me, a child in you, never grown. We will not grow old. We will never stop growing.’ 

‘It will not be easy. You will choke on me. You will run from me. You will return home. In never knowing where to be, you will become totally free.’ 

‘The world of grown things and fake grins and opinions hoarded and bodies distorted and souls crushed by the weight of dependency and greed, bloody cashews and stained cotton, this world will fade, above our eyesight. Just as it did when I was nine and you were seven pretending to be eight. Why did you want to be so old, baby?’

‘I wanted to grow. I hadn’t figured out yet, how it was all in memory, so I tried to forget you. I ran.’

‘Then what happened?’ I beg for the story to never end. She pulls her chin to the edge of the mattress. I’m sitting on the floor with a pink pen. She kisses my ribcage. First the right side, then the left, ‘If I could stick my tongue through you, I could like your heart from this exact spot.’ 

‘Don’t move.’ I turn to face her. Her slimy pink tongue caught off-guard, still hanging out. ‘I’m going to draw you.’

‘Ha! Dearest Juniper, don’t wear yourself out. Write me a letter instead. Sing to me as I fall asleep. But please, don’t attempt to sketch me in this light. You’ll draw right through me. You’ll paint an empty bed and forget that I’m sprawled out on your stupid grey sheets, screaming ‘I want pink!’ What kind of fucking girl’s room is this anyway! Okay, you got purple peddles on your bike, fine, but everything else is so serious. Why are you so serious, silly sucker? It’s spring! Lighten up buttercup. Its time to bloom, let’s play! Its time to wake me up! What are you waiting for, the seagulls to come to your door? Dip your fingers in yourself; paint in red.’ 

I buy a blank canvas and hang it on a white wall. I buy a thousand pink pens and start folding paper into butterflies. I make friends with every single one. I don’t care if they’re too small to see what I can see. I don’t mind being lonely. I still lay beside them. I still listen. I begin telling them my story. They don’t fly away. They stay. They listen. They can’t hear a single word I am saying but they stare on intently anyway. They can’t figure out if I’m a boy or a girl. They can’t stand the uncertainty. They are addicted to knowing all things. I laugh like a lunatic at their idiocy and tell them that I don’t know my own name. ‘Name me, would you! Rename everything that you see. New fiction baby, we’ve got to find our own way. This way simply stinks. I brace my room full of butterflies, ‘be gentle with your judgmental glances and grown-up contemplations, please. You are only looking at your own face. These are baby steps. This is the first time I’ve ever held a brush in my hands. Look, they’re shaking. I’m trembling.’ I’m whining now, just on the verge of tears ‘I am just a child, born unto a world full of dead fools to prove that I, dressed in my young heart and my devious ways, am all that is alive. Juniper. Sage. Boy bitch brat God Love, the air you breathe; call me whatever you please. It is only I. P! It is only you! For fucks sake baby, be gentle! This is the first time I’ve tried painting in all my life. Remember? I’ve only ever known the language we were speaking.

Then I closed my mouth, salt water dripping down my pink flushed cheeks, I splashed my own blood on the emptiness to bring back one single memory of you. A red balloon bouncing on gravity, strings between your sticky fingers, a silent orchestra, a child screaming, ten toes in low tides; the only dawn there ever was. And before either of us knew he or she existed, a stoic boy by your side.’