Her walls were painted blue. It was a dark, mysterious, intellectual blue; the kind that affected your mood. They were adorned with paintings given to her, pictures, collages, and notes. Any bit of wall space was plastered with images. By her door hung a picture of a man, head and shoulders, drawn in pinks and purples. One was sure he was watching them but the entire room seemed full of watchful spirits. Clothes spattered out of a yellow dresser like a frozen waterfall. Songs of birds radiated through the windows, filling her room. She made a habit of listening to the birds yet never grew a fondness for the birds themselves. She thought them impersonal, and distant.

She preferred animals with mass, that she could hold against her self and feel their warmth. She recognized the peculiarity of this feeling – she had never considered herself an intimate person. It was hard for her to connect with people; even simple chatter seemed strenuous. Perhaps this is why she loved the dog so much. They needed not to speak to one another nor connect on any other level than the one where it was agreed they both appreciated each other’s company.

The dog slept next to her, providing a reassuring protection against the spirits that watched her in the room. She didn’t feel like the dog was hers at all, rather more itself. Inanimate objects were owned but no freethinking object should ever be.

They had come to look alike in mannerisms and characteristics. They both had small, pensive eyes and large distinct noses. They both were both beautiful and forgettable. The dog liked to run about sniffing, exploring, marking at any available opportunity, yet always returned to her. She actually quite enjoyed this exquisite performance of innate nature; often comparing it to a dance.

While the dog ran about she sorted the files in her head. They were strewn about, like the clothes on her floor; both chaotic and unruly, yet organized with uncanny precision. No one else understood the science to this, but she didn’t need anyone else to. Few people understood her in fact, but several noticed and adapted to her patterns. She thought quickly, often saying exactly what was on her mind. From time to time her bluntness could be found to be offensive; she justified it to herself with the thought that there are just some things that need to be said, no matter who was to say them. It came to be understood that this was the way things were.

Perhaps it was her skin; freckled porcelain, maybe we associated it with innocence and naiveté. The inconsistency in her language made it difficult for any one to relate to her. On short terms she related; but only to one person. Of course she had friends, but they were aware that they meant little to her. For her, it was ok to be without human company. It was what she preferred most of the time.

She would find solace in hiding behind her hair. Making a fortress of her curls against the pandemonium of the outside world.

She put little down on paper, in fear of critique. At times it was imperative to her to get a point across. She performed this duty in the form of heated rants about whatever or whoever was important at the time; retreating immediately afterwards to her usual introverted silence.

She didn’t much like having opinions because she didn’t like being contradicted. She thought this fear developed from growing up in a contradicting household. Her parents’ disapproval of her was known. It was never mentioned by any means, but she felt she could tell, by their breath when they were not speaking, that she disappointed them. She tried hard, and fought for acceptance. She was at terms with the fact that ultimately, through all of our bullshit it was all we were really seeking.

Her hands were tough and old as though she had been through a lot, yet she had been through nothing, nothing real at least. She couldn’t even stay in one place or with any one person for too long.

When she was young she was incredibly bright. Loved reading, writing, and sharing. Maybe she thought too much about the future, about what it could hold for her. She lived her life as a nostalgic novel, wishing she hadn’t spent her past thinking about her future. Now she spent her future thinking about her past.

She was unhappy about the way she looked; which ultimately led to her happiness. She felt as though “any man who cares to love me is doing it because some of my inner light has blinded him.” She thought no one could be attracted to her. Truthfully, many men were attracted to her, though often driven away by her lack of meaningful outer monologue.

She ran her life through her head, typing each action as words, making poetic imagery of ordinary things. In school she became the peek of a boys interest. He saw the wheels turning in her head and caught a glimpse, as he later told her, of her soul every time their eyes met. He was a painter and photographer. She found it very difficult to relate to him, tried to impress him with her beautiful and erratic language. He heard, but did not listen. He painted her things, pictures of flowers, and of other girls. She hung every one upon her walls. She never loved him, and he never loved her; they both held a quiet animosity towards each other.

After time spent with him, she often felt lousy, and dwelled on idiotic comments either of them made, yet when the phone rang all she could hope for was his voice on the other end. He brought her flowers to school and asked her away from her friend to walk the campus yet never spoke to her on their strolls. Her hair, he said, was the most beautiful hair he had ever seen, but he never touched it.

He told her that he liked her better before he knew her, but she didn’t mind. She felt like he still didn’t know her, nor she him, and accepted this as his inability to reason properly. Perhaps they would never know each other.

He would come over to her house on weekends and walk with her through the shaded creek with her dog. He always insisted on holding the leash. It seemed to be a pattern, his need to be in charge of everything. He was pretentious, self – obsessed, and obnoxious.

This made her dance underneath the leaves of the oaks; she laughed at the ridiculousness of life and of people and of herself. Things might never be ok, never the way she wanted or had expected. She might not grow up to change the world. She might not ever fall in love, or ever find a confidant. She might always keep those colorless painting on her walls, signifying her acceptance for mediocrity. She was anything but bland but she was yet to find someone to prove this to; and she didn’t need to.