Her

I used to ride the train home from Kindergarten at the same hour that the high schoolers took the 1 train back uptown. I was about... four feet, clinging to a pole and looking up at giants. There was a girl in skinny jeans and bright white Nikes. She had the most perfect curly hair that was always perfectly tousled and was wearing gold hoops, and a backpack thrown over her arm. The subway car would be packed in tight, so that everything was dark at my height - people's legs and bags. So I would just look up at her, with the perfect hair and the perfect look, surrounded by her girlfriends who were laughing, and she was laughing too, a big beautiful smile, with gum tucked in the back. And in front of her was some guy leaning against the subway door, flirting with her and she just kept laughing back. And these people were in some realm of superiority, which seemed like perfection, and where everyone should land in by the time they were teenagers. At that age, being a teenager, was one notch below a deity. It was a place I dreamed of, when I would be at the peak of life and freedom and identity. And beyond that, when I had my identity, I knew exactly who I would be. I wanted to be her.

23

That night, she kept walking. The black door beckoned as it had every other night, but she couldn't go through it now. The wind brushed her cheeks and summoned unemotional tears, despite the cirucumstance. She didn't have the want to go, but she didn't want to do anything, except get somewhere cold, somewhere holy, somewhere that would tell her what to do. Past the black door and ignoring the red light, the darkness ahead was as looming and inevitable as it had been when she woke up that morning, her fate already decided, but her being unaware of it. It was a tunnel that called to her, because wherever she was wandering that night, it was far better than from where she was coming. Something about the cold darkness was comforting, gave her a sense of belonging. Belonging to the cold is to belong to nothing, to loneliness and that little black part in your heart.
Every breath had weight that questioned if another breath would ever come. Then, it came, rushing all too fast into her lungs, and the woman, the girl, almost choking on it, before suffocating from lack of it. Without any consious choice, her legs proplled her forward, away from a shattered world, and towards a world she didn't know yet. She stopped at the wall.
Looking over the wall, snow was shoved up around the fences, once beautiful innocence, now packed into the uniform truth of what it means. Light reflected off the glistening concrete, from the street lights, creating a white and golden hue. The mini bowling ball in her chest rose, and fell. The wind grazed the top of her hair, and she lifted her head to the sky, to look for the moon. Once located, the familiar white curve shone down pressing truth onto her face.
Frozen in her mind was the sight she'd seen so often before, and taken for granted. Now, tonight as it appeared, it stopped her heart, her breathing, her head spun and she stared at the image in her head. It took over and she asked - why. it was the happiest sight of her life. And given previous events, it was questioned, if it too, were real.

Romance

This is actually a true story and not a random fiction on the spot. I watch it happen every Saturday. There is a girl in a black costume living a sheltered life around everyone and special, but too special to live. A girl of innocence, the angelic image, a trapped seventeen year old. What teenager like that wants to be so protected so out of touch, so naive? The perfect person is isolated though so glorious, but see, there is excitement for her. Someone has come from far away, literally the Prince to dance with. This is the moment, the only chance, contained emotion is bursting out. The spectators say, 'oh, what a wonderful actress' but can you see what is really going on? This is her life! Her little teen romance, and it's all hidden by the stage. Seduction, love, the game, the victory, what every other seventeen year old has at excess. Poor deprived soul. It's not acting. She's attracted to him and she's trying to get him because this is all she has to play at. But look. He's bored. She's just another girl he's hired to dance with. 

Girl

And so the girl was scared. She wasn't so sure how she'd landed where she was, alone in the dark on the south side of Pinehurst. Neither was she quite optimistic about her situation from that point forward. Come on now, this was her hood. She'd grown up there. She flipped back her hair, which was a mess, tangled around her ears, just above her shoulders. From her peripheral vision she could see wisps of it pointing every which way, and some strands were stuck to her tear-stricken face. Not a good look, thought she as the expansive block before her grew shorter and shorter. If only she could find a sign, a bodega, get over onto Broadway. Though it was dangerous to be roaming on a Friday night, if she could find Broadway, she could get home. Come on now, this was her hood. As her clogs tapped on the uneven pavement, some car was playing hip hop, far off. She imagined the sound becoming closer, and quickened her pace towards it. She'd grown up here. It was all fine. The hip hop did grow louder, which made her heart pound, and her cheap hoops in her ear clang high-pitched. Headlights scared her off the road. Startled the girl. But as it would be, that SUV and the lights that threw her off 171st, threw her right in front of a taxi, on 172nd.