Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The girls were not girls in the way that had come to be thought, feeling in their bodies like boys which is to say more things were permitted, and the boys wore pink tutus not as a phase to go through but just because they felt like it.
To school, on the tram, the bus, walking down the street late at night they were these things and wore these things and felt safe. And any looks that came their way were not because they were outrageous or strange but because around them spun an orb of delight and fancy and infinite possibility. Those who could not themselves imagine being boys because they were not, or wearing such things, nonetheless smiled in recognition of the desire, the freedom, the tulle. Oh, the tulle.
Those days we felt ourselves lucky and even though I had no god, at night in the very quiet I said a word of thanks for what I had. I thought thank you and being grateful were like particles that would travel out into the ether, atmosphere, stratosphere and join with other similar vowels, consonants, syntax and form a collective orb that would keep us all safe. Keep those girls who wanted to be boys and the boys in pink tutus walking the streets safe. Keep them. All. Safe.
