White Flamingo

Dear White Flamingo,

Now that was a real, true connection.

You were innocent but wild, running across the blue city carpet, your finger spinning up your nose, a giant compared to me but far from a monster. You locked eyes with me, and without hesitation, ran up and hugged me. That was the kind of girl you were.

So simple, yet so endlessly complex. A vibrant flamingo, always absorbing the sunlight. Your personality shone so brightly that standing next to you made me invisible to everyone else. Your imagination had no off button, it ran wild and free. You were pretty in pink, perfectly flawed, with a million freckles and a gap between your two front teeth.

You were the jack of all trades: straight A’s, church on Sundays, drawing, baking, building, and winning any game with a goal. You were the girl who cried to her mom after eating candy at a sleepover. The girl wrapped in warmth, surrounded by color, family, and friendship. The girl who ran to the bus stop late, forgot to brush her teeth, and nagged me for gum. My only job, it seemed, was to protect you from embarrassment, to shield you, even when you didn’t need it, you never did. I told you what not to wear, say, or do, thinking I was helping.

But you? You kept me in line. You stopped me from screaming at other kids. You held me back from violence and covered my ears from my own awful language. My parents were always working, but your family brought me in like I was one of their own.

And then... the tape that held us together began to peel.

At first, we tried to stick it back down, to fix it, to fix us. But no matter how many times we pressed it, it wouldn't hold. We stayed in that unbalanced friendship far too long, pretending nothing was changing. But it was.

Eventually, the tape gave out completely. You chose them, whatever was "normal", whatever was accepted.

Now, every time we cross paths, it’s like we never even met. All those years? Gone. We’re strangers. And what hurts the most is... I didn’t even recognize it was happening until it already had.

When flamingos change their diet, they lose their color. And that’s what happened to you, you fucking stripped to down to white. The bright pink I once knew faded into something dull and unknown. You became someone who feeds off the lies and nonsense of those around you. Who clings to reputation like she’s hanging off a cliff. Your imagination is gone, and now, you walk around unprotected, not by me, not even by yourself.

You badmouth your “friends,” but we both know the second you’d leave them, they’d turn on you just the same. You spread the very rumors I once warned you about, doing the very things I once told you not to do. But my role’s gone now. I made it up anyway. You don’t hear my voice anymore and that’s just fine.

I used to blame myself for losing you, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought something was wrong with all women and maybe I was right in some ways. But here’s the truth I finally had to face...

You were never as naive as I thought. You never needed a shield. You wanted the mess. Every. Single. Thing. You. Do. Is. And. Was. Always. Intentional. You weren't just book smart, you played the long game, just like me.

You, the star-struck girl, the innocent virgin blonde who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who seemed too pure to ever do wrong, oh, that was a beautifully portrayed lie. Props to you and the fake tears though. You hated vulgar language. Maybe that’s how you were raised or maybe that’s because those are the only words that actually described you, unmasked, real, and raw.

And maybe that’s the biggest shame of it all.
Because this version of you, the true one, the one I never got to meet fully?
We might’ve actually gotten along as two individuals. There was never a right and wrong one of us. Sometimes I look back and think about the days where you were scared of me and lied your way out. Was it me or your own reflection you feared?

Maybe I wouldn’t have tried so hard to "fix myself"... if I had just known you.

Cheers to life flamingo, not one day goes by where I don't think of you.

The real you.

-A Pretty Bug