The books used to offend me. The way he’d ask me if I read Olaf Stapleton, read “author” like having read so much you can recognize authors is normal. My crowd asked me about pop culture on a good day, and hated Billie Eilish for being a woman most. Anways, I hid my contempt. I started reading. It stung.
The normalcy
The proof that people exist with see nuanced behavior as subtle as:
how some people walk with an heir of ease and other have to to struggle, kick, and swim to stay afloat
realizing she asked to see her boyfriend’s friend’s cellphone pictures in collage form under the guise of humor knowing it was a way to get to know him more intimately with out instigating jealousy
how he acts out a stereotype of being feeble and soft spoken to make up for that guilt he feels for stereotyping someone he holds in high esteem as more bigoted and domineering than either of them would ever like to come to terms with.
They know. They read each other in a way I’m starved for. Years of exercising diplomacy and emotional intelligence. I wouldn’t even know what to say.
How dare you notice things i’m so used to being the only one noticing, the only one able to make a stranger feel understood with. If so many of you exist then when haven’t you found me, taken me in and thrown me into a whirlwind of emotions already? You left me alone too romanticize derelicts, and I don’t know if it’s bad that i did a really good job. Reading this is like stalking an unrequited lover I never met. Reading this makes me ask what’s wrong with me.
Anthropological Magical Realism 