Girls do not fall out of water towers

Girls do not fall out of water towers.

They are born, and they grow by getting grass stains on their dress hems and finger paint on their shirts. They grow by fighting dragons on the playground and swinging so high that they could fall in to the sky and never touch down. They grow by giggles behind the teacher’s turned back and cookies made with love.

They do not fall out of water towers.

But when the water tower at the end of the road groaned, it almost sounded like laughter. When it swayed it could have been reaching up in to the endless sky. When the sunset turned it shades of red it could have been paint put there a mischievous sibling or a friend or its own colorful fingers.

But girls do not fall out of water towers.

They do not come in to the world blinking with wide eyes at a deluge of water and scraps of rusted metal. They do not turn their faces to the sun and smile as if meeting a friend for the thousandth time. They do not meet the drying of their skin with wonder as they stand there in puddles of water that had been waiting for a purpose that never came.

Because they do not fall out of water towers.

They do not return to the place of their birth with a sketchpad in hand. They do not spend hours sketching the world in a trance only to bury their drawings in the soil that never quite dries out no matter how long the drought and never gets puddles no matter how heavy the rain. They do not return home with clean hands after digging hole after hole.

Girls sometimes go to the old water tower.

Sometimes a girl makes the climb to the stretch of damp mud and holds the hands of a girl colder than the air and touches her lips. And when they walked back to town one girl looked like she’d spent the day in a pigsty and the other just stepped out of the shower but they were both breathless and giggling and barely disguised snatches for the waistband of a skirt or the faint outline of a bra.

And they stay long enough for the mud to learn their names.

They talk and giggle and draw and dig and kiss dirty words from the others lips. They look at the clouds and say nothing at all. They camp beneath the stars and the girl with cold hands waits for the universe to yell and tell her to stop. Because it is too perfect for a girl who never snuck a confession note in to someone’s locker. Because it is too perfect for a girl who never had an awkward first date. Because it is too perfect for a girl who spent every school dance with mud underneath her and stars above her.

And the universe stays silent.