She prefers the mild winter or fall because she loves the way she looks and feels with high black boots hugging her legs and the swish and sway of long, light jackets or sweaters. Her best friend has long, full, dark hair that hangs around her face and shoulders like mystery and seduction so beautifully she almost falls in love with her friend on a regular basis and she thinks she would love to grow her hair out like that, a warm cover of cascading beauty, but she always keeps her hair cropped close in pixie-short cuts that leave her slender neck for showing the scarves she loves too much, she thinks, the scarves she owns in questionable numbers, she often feels, bright and light and billowy. Her favorite day is walking blustery sidewalks alone from shops to cafes to boutiques, one or two small bags, no great burden, with some new, lively treasures. Her favorite feeling is words, just a few, with some new stranger. She always tries to put love and praise into what she says. She never wants to discourage or hurt the way they did to her for all that time, long behind, in dingy, smokey rent houses she never lets herself remember. She wants to see eyes light up or smiles, always from a distance, a few feet away, not close enough to touch, to hurt. At night she lies alone and listens to the endless stream of music recommended for her by sweet, innocent Leo. She doesn't like it or dislike it, she just wants to hear it, to feel it, like sheets on her sensitive skin. People see her on the sidewalk and smile. Her friend loves the feeling of her fingers playing forgetfully in her long, dark hair as they talk of the easy nothing much that happens each day. Leo loves her but will never let her know. She falls asleep and dreams of floating naked in a warm, bottomless sea. Love songs whisper her far away.
Hello, friends. I hope you're well.
Later. Love.
