She's a girl who talks differently, though, she looks just like you. She has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, a head full of chestnut-colored hair, four working and perfect limbs, a body that breathes and is alive. I swear she could be anyone.
Sometimes when she opens her mouth to speak, it sounds like the words get stuck. "Just spit out!", you might urge her thinking this might help. It will not help. The fact that you noticed at all will cause her to recoil from shame. She looks like you, but she does not feel like you. She feels alien, like a foreigner among all the "normal" speaking people. You guys are everywhere! She has never met another person who talks like her except one of her uncles, but he never comes around (she concludes he must feel the shame too), so it's kind of like he doesn't even exist, even though this thought saddens her. She wants to exist to people; she doesn't want to be forgotten...
Sometimes she cries all night. She doesn't like the person she's become, but she's trying. She thinks there is a different person and she thinks this other person lives inside of her heart. This person talks like her too, but she sounds wiser even though she feels younger. This person could be her cheerleader or her god or her inner self or something silly and intangible like that, she isn't sure. The only thing she knows is that sometimes, when she isn't crying at night wishing she could talk like all the normal people, she'll catch a glance of herself in the mirror. She's smiling because she feels free. She's smiling because she thinks she's unearthed that secret person who lives in her heart when she realizes it is her. It is her cheerleader/god/inner self smiling back at the chestnut-haired girl with perfect limbs and imperfect speech. She smiles.
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