I was walking to the post office and crossing from the other side of the street in front of me was a sixteen year old black girl, wheeling her bike with a bunch of dirty haired white boys, in boots and a patchwork hoodie, self illustrated with a NoFX logo, and "destroy" spelled out in metal studs on the hood, hanging behind her like a punk rock license plate. She made me think of Vera Cura.
The mythology of my life is incomplete without mention of Vera Cura. She can be understood as my own personal deity in high school. She was dark and lithe, with flashing almond eyes and an arsenic smile, dangerously alluring like the exotic paramour of ruin in a silent film. I rejected all the traditional quantifiers of social status and only subscribed to the ones I excelled at, and still Vera was cooler than me. She was the only person I knew that was, like she embodied everything I aspired to and desired in another, completely independently of my decision to cheat the system. Vera was as effortless as destiny. Even as I inevitably fell for her I knew she would never have to reject me. Vera was a concept, an objet d'art, she was beyond the vulgarity of turning me down and as if by grace I never felt unrequited. Everyone who knew Vera fell in love with her. It was the same love you have for a song, the aching appreciation you feel in the moment that a crowd sings together in a close, sweaty room, the love that Wendy felt for Peter Pan before she realized she was aging even in her youth, eternal and painfully innocent.
When I was the age of the girl with the bike there were few girls, and less black people, that shared my style. I would like to talk to her just to see what she's like, and remember a little bit of daring Vera from our youth. She was the rarest of things, she had no peer. She's in the world somewhere even now, and I'm terrified to look for her. I wonder what she would think of what I've become, the urgency of my adolescence spent and my cavalier edge dulled. I know I owe Vera more than what I've realized of my potential. She wouldn't judge me but the dark mirror of her eyes might not hide the disappointment. Unimaginably, even worse, I may discover her a shade of the manic panic vision she was, and dash her icon on barren stone.
The girl appraised me with her Egyptian eyes, a small mark high on her cheek full of mystery. I could have said 'hello' but I just walked passed. Wouldn't Wendy have been happier had she not confronted the cruelty of Peter's agelessness when he came for her daughter? And Peter should remain blissfully unaware that the heat of youth cools, no matter how unrelenting it feels. Vera is in the world and so am I, but the place where Vera and I are in the world together is some other Neverland.
The mythology of my life is incomplete without mention of Vera Cura. She can be understood as my own personal deity in high school. She was dark and lithe, with flashing almond eyes and an arsenic smile, dangerously alluring like the exotic paramour of ruin in a silent film. I rejected all the traditional quantifiers of social status and only subscribed to the ones I excelled at, and still Vera was cooler than me. She was the only person I knew that was, like she embodied everything I aspired to and desired in another, completely independently of my decision to cheat the system. Vera was as effortless as destiny. Even as I inevitably fell for her I knew she would never have to reject me. Vera was a concept, an objet d'art, she was beyond the vulgarity of turning me down and as if by grace I never felt unrequited. Everyone who knew Vera fell in love with her. It was the same love you have for a song, the aching appreciation you feel in the moment that a crowd sings together in a close, sweaty room, the love that Wendy felt for Peter Pan before she realized she was aging even in her youth, eternal and painfully innocent.
When I was the age of the girl with the bike there were few girls, and less black people, that shared my style. I would like to talk to her just to see what she's like, and remember a little bit of daring Vera from our youth. She was the rarest of things, she had no peer. She's in the world somewhere even now, and I'm terrified to look for her. I wonder what she would think of what I've become, the urgency of my adolescence spent and my cavalier edge dulled. I know I owe Vera more than what I've realized of my potential. She wouldn't judge me but the dark mirror of her eyes might not hide the disappointment. Unimaginably, even worse, I may discover her a shade of the manic panic vision she was, and dash her icon on barren stone.
The girl appraised me with her Egyptian eyes, a small mark high on her cheek full of mystery. I could have said 'hello' but I just walked passed. Wouldn't Wendy have been happier had she not confronted the cruelty of Peter's agelessness when he came for her daughter? And Peter should remain blissfully unaware that the heat of youth cools, no matter how unrelenting it feels. Vera is in the world and so am I, but the place where Vera and I are in the world together is some other Neverland.
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