Sara Beck

pixie

she stops by my office wearing a pride flag as a
cape and her pixie cut is pink and
purple and she is exuberant she has changed her name to
lavender and is it too much, she asks?
a kind of performative signaling?
but i don’t think so i tell her
if it feels right to you right now, i say roll
with it names and hair colors are actually pretty easy to
change and she sits and i make mint tea with my electric kettle and
she tells me about heracles and deianeira and all things
greek and i am listening and marveling and also
distracted because i knew a college student who pretended
her friend with the short red pixie and the painted lips and the hips
for days was definitely just a friend
even to herself
that girl was terrified of breaking a rule no one spoke
even though the talk around her was mostly sex-positive,
gay-positive, love-positive still the word bisexual meant something
undecided and decidedly bad and lavender is proudly difficult
to categorize and i am so fucking proud of young people today
and the world is changing in marvelous, inspiring ways
and you will not convince me otherwise because this young person
in a rainbow cape is many things but here,
in my office, she is not
afraid