If I Was Your Girlfriend

If I was your girlfriend, would you tell me all your most appalling secrets as we lie side by side in your single bed with the golden bed posts like Cinderella’s? We both wear pajamas that are becoming too small for our developing bodies, and adore your James Dean poster in the most heated and dedicated adoration only prepubescent girls can. We trade postcards of our favorite singers and actors, bought from the little punk shop in town, the only one there is to be found, and it is our mecca. You buy your first leather studded bracelet there, but I am too afraid my parents wouldn’t let me wear one, so I chicken out.

If I was your girlfriend, would you pour us Coca-Cola in the yellow mugs in the middle of the night, as we tiptoe our way into the kitchen, stifling our giggles? One of the glasses from the cupboard falls on the floor, and we laugh at this, laugh at nothing, as we try to tidy the shards away with minimum commotion.

If I was your girlfriend, would you come running with me in the field in midsummer, drunk after a bottle of cheap red wine, and take all your clothes of, because that is how one is supposed to have a vision of one’s future husband? We are in our late teens and know it is silly and superstitious, but we relish the rambunctiousness of our joint state of altered understanding, and hold hands as we run in the wheat, screaming in delight and pain, because the ground is hard and the straws sting our bare feet.

If I was your girlfriend, would you rescue me from the water, when we go swimming, and it is one of those white nights of summer, and you see me starting to struggle? You pull me up on to the platform, and we go back to the dressing room next to the sauna, and sing Suede’s The Drowners while drying off to ease ourselves away from the scare. The others get worried and come see if anything is the matter. You never say a word to anyone, and neither do I.

If I was your girlfriend, would you lend me your boyfriend’s mixtapes to listen to? We sit at the round kitchen table in your house, studying for the big exam, and your mother always buys the delicious white bread, and we slice thick slices of it and butter them and have them with our mid-morning coffee. The sun is not yet warm, but it is in the sky, and the table is bathed in its light. You are showing me the gorgeously crafted silk paper pages of his latest letter, which really is a work of art, and the cover art of the tapes is unique and lovely. He is so in love with you, and his taste in music is impeccable. The tapes go round our group after you have listened to them, and we make terrible weak quality re-recordings of them for personal use. On the table there are cd’s and tapes everywhere, and when we go outside for a smoke, we sing Space Oddity and compare the hairs on our arms. Once back inside, we take a break from studying, and I take out my journal for a while, and you start drawing, teary eyes in black ink in the margins of your letter. We pride ourselves on how we, too, can make our own cover art seem inspired.

If I was your girlfriend, would you read all my stories and tell me I am the greatest, never telling me they read like a schoolgirl’s paper? You describe me as a rock star in class, not meaning it as a compliment, but I never ask you what you mean, because you seem to love me in spite of that description. You water your numerous house plants twice a day and keep the nutritious liquid to further fertilize them in a yellow mug in the book shelf, next to your boom box with the water jug on top of it, to hold the cd-player’s lid in place because it is broken. We have tea in your room, and in the middle of one of our meaningful discussions, you reach for your mug and by accident take a swig from the nutrient mug instead, and we both laugh until our eyes water.

If I was your girlfriend, would you cut my hair, when I’m sick of my long brown hair and want it short again? You have me sit by the bathroom doorway, because it has the best light at night, and I tell you it doesn’t matter if you mess it up a little, the shorter the better. Afterwards you come sit with me outside as I smoke a cigarette in my new hair. You sit on the hood of my car and dangle your feet in a way that makes us both laugh.

If I was your girlfriend, would you come walking with me down to the pier, silent in one of those comfortable silences that everyone talks about but few can actually muster? We walk in the soft wind, and my hair keeps getting in my eyes, and we both have our denim jackets on, and you don’t say anything, because my heart is broken, and there is nothing to say.

If I was your girlfriend, would you forgive me my selfish monologues and my need for some arrogance after some lonely years in the bleachers? We talk about how hard it is to maintain a manageable weight, and how we no longer fit in our best skirts, and while you try on a striped shirt, I rummage through a selection of vintage sunglasses, and we end up buying things we really don’t need, but it is a rite of passage, and we buy expensive coffee and take our coats off, and debate whether to indulge in cake.

Inspired by and in memory of Prince Rogers Nelson