ItÕs her birthday, sheÕs flutter tears, and we donÕt know why. She wonÕt tell us, wonÕt tell me anyways.

But later sheÕs smiles. Drags me to an over air-conditioned movie theatre and I only go because itÕs her birthday. I sink into my seat. All around, the boys I hate. The boys that smell of thick white socks and sweated-in sports jerseys, stuffing their faces with buttery popcorn. I canÕt help feeling this way though I know to them I am probably the same. The categorical opposite. I am a blue alien.

After I run off with the watery spidery birthday girl. We stuff ourselves with sushi, tempura, green tea. We talk about each otherÕs pasts we werenÕt involved in. And she tells me how pretty she thinks I am while IÕm all ghosty translucent insecurities.

After we find the girl with the strong body and flowery feet. Her mother is the fashion beauty queen and sheÕs the original unrequited romantic. Sometimes I love her for it.

Downtown we wander to a tiny park with trees and grass and cobblestones and a fountain. The glitter-blue water reflections dance, fiddling with the wind in our hair. We climb a tree and sit there like foreign branches. But belonging in the intense love of this tree. I wish we could live here, our hair tangling and going wild. WeÕd chew on the breeze and drink the rain or maybe starve, and it wouldnÕt matter.

But the fountain is the treeÕs artificial more beautiful sister. And I am drawn to her in my guilty adrenaline and lust. And I am struck with desire, and I am a water spirit, praying to the fountain and to the city, and tree and night. I take off all my clothes (except for the chunk- boots, movie-star sunglasses, pink coat and underclothes) and we dance around the fountain. Birthday mouse is tiny and delicate. The water swims shadows in her face, delicate, and I photograph her with her new favorite lover, Mr. Blue Light. Flower feet stands in strange poses, her body is making up a new language. A completely new ten-minute forgotten language.

But then some drunken teenage boys appear from the outer world of the city, outside our park. In their stares the reality scratches my bare skin. And pellets underneath my eyelids.

Clothed, we sit on the ferry eating ice cream from a huge tub with plastic spoons. The glitter trash city disappears behind us, staring at our knapsacks. He reminds us, mocks us for the fact that we arenÕt free and beauty. We are in high school, and itÕs too many hours past midnight.

But then when the magic scene-city-water worship moments come in I can completely lose myself to the wind. Then and only then.