The Sun

Some parts of me float around untethered by those who I’ve been abandoned. The Moroccan oil perfume I wore with my ex. The rooftop restaurant I went to in New York with an ex-friend who once stayed at my childhood home. I am okay with losing them, less okay with letting the currency of my vulnerability fly free in the company of their unpredictable vessel. Collecting friends like lovers, I emulate the cool girl I used to cling to before I met you, the one who made me commit and give up my unhealed fantasy of ethical non-monogamy. The thing about the girl I embody is that she’s curated yet nonchalant. Like a messy bun you spend hours styling only for it to look like you just rolled out of bed. Her friends will dance Bhangra at her wedding, but they won’t know how many tears she shed anticipating their presence. Mourning the tradition. Calculating for them to show up. Dressed in a white kurta like Layla as they dance at their sister’s wedding, I’ve curated the act of seeming exactly like I belong. But I am both princess and monster, queen and boy. The persona is fun, but in this femininity, in this curated nonchalance, I am in drag.

Am I the sun or am I just pretending? A new friend asks me the question, in different words, over sassy pink twink drinks in a hidden happy hour spot a few doorsteps away from my best friend’s new apartment. Is it too early to call them that? Friend. How could it be?  I can’t help but question, though, how soon is too soon to be known. Am I the sun or am I just pretending? It’s a good question. I have never felt more known but also naked. It’s funny how I want to be known yet am urged to retreat at the first sign of it. I live in the space of being the sun. I live in the space of blowing bubbles and hosting rodeo parties with Budweisers and hot dogs. Of having my hair curled and my lips lined and my physique she/her’ed. In sending texts with emojis and fleeting plans for happy hours that may or may never come to fruition. I am the sun until I am dark. Until the darkness consumes me. And only a select few can ever know, have ever known, that. My community surrounds me like an impenetrable force field, but only my friends are eye-to-eye enough with my demons to grab them by the horns.