my kind of heroine

this is for you, Hana

To you,

It must have not crossed your mind- that time when I stole your lipstick in our last tanabata festival together. The pink shade you wore on your lips became the colour of my fall. Your kimono embodied summer nostalgia, fitting your form so perfectly as if the garment passed down from obaasan itself was tailored just for you.

How was it that you shine even brighter than the fireworks scattered across the sky?

I swore to never be like you, but the mirror beside my bed is a witness to the crime I decorate my face with every waking hour. Do you smile as hard as this? Do you pull your hair as tight as mine for that ponytail you’ve branded as your own style? Do you pucker your lips like so when you run the lipstick across, thinking how cute you must’ve looked?

That mole beneath your chin, sitting just a little above your collarbone, is quite endearing. I’ve never hated anything to a terrifying extent, other than the idea of how dare a thing have the nerve to ruin such pristine, pretty little neck.

I dream of the day I get to scratch it off your skin.

The irritation of never being able to relieve the itch I left will haunt you for days to come, and I’d be satisfied in knowing how you’d crave hands to hug your throat.

You can despise my touch and tie my wrists, choke out the words that I swallowed that evening, its thought written in the paper hanging on a bamboo.

This might not have crossed your mind too- that day when your gym shirt went missing, and you pranced around the hallway staining that nameless person’s clothes with your scent. Your black locks looked better longer, I could almost imagine it tangled on your bed sheets, twisted like the desire I have to preserve the strand left clutching on your missing fabric.

Must I confess how you smelled a little of Flair, citrus, and fresh dream disguised as a nightmare?

I wish you were a little cruel.

Find me repulsive, I beg. I think dressing to be like you is a disease my flesh is dying to cure.

It doesn’t help when your photo sticks itself out of my diary, and your lipstick on the table gives a burning stare, taunting me about those times I imitated the pitch of your voice, loathing the way it came out hoarse.

But you, darling, your words form itself like stanzas of poetry. Why on earth do you speak in such a way that makes my heart mellow? Why do you look at these vile people with such trust and softness
-fluttering your eyelash at them like they have the right to witness the smile that had me on a choke-hold since junior high.

Sometimes, I fear that this hatred is a mere disguise for my desire to covet your existence.

Call me, Hana.

Why won’t you call?

Did you forget me like everyone else did? You know I haven’t forgotten you at all.

❏

the letter is very old. a tea or coffee seems to have fallen on the envelope, creating an unknown shape on the paper. however, there was another note separate from the original message- hiding on the corner end.

“高校�'張ってね、あらちゃ�"!”