“At some point growing stopped being painful and started to become interesting. I’m so curious about the girl punching her way out of me: dirt under her fingernails, lightning in her eyes.
St. Jude has never been called upon to save her. She looks like she has smashed into starlight
and I am probably in love with her. I have always avoided knowledge of myself, documentation of my growth. I am not accomplished at looking back over myself like a sprawling landscape. There are certain things that I am aware I must have lived
through but I don’t remember the emergence of this girl. I couldn’t tell you what circumstances shaped her. Maybe none. Maybe she was just biding her time, like people so often do. I never know what she is going to do next;
the hair she will cut off without a moment’s thought, the notes she will leave behind in coffee shops wishing the barista a lovely day. She wants to read everything, know the story of how her parents fell in love, follow the lines of her blood back to the other side of the continent. She holds certain convictions firmly in her hand, like religion: you must always have a fresh bunch of flowers in your bedroom, you must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of
ruthlessness, you must learn to recognise important poetry.
I follow her rules. I find that I like them. This girl of the earth, with her knowledge of full moons and fists full of survival stories, is going to change everything. ‘Don’t go,’ I tell her. ‘I will follow you anywhere.’”— Girl of The Earth.