i ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she tells me she already has, so i say no, what do you want to be when you grow up and she says an octopus, an eight-legged creature of the deep. solitary, strong.

i tell her that's the kind of answer a child would give but she tilts her head and smiles and tells me that if she hasn't grown up already, she must still be a child.

i admit, my long-legged gloss-toned friend has a point, but then i also tell her she's a smart ass, because she is.  i change the subject.  i say let's look at the moon and she pulls her face and tells me she would rather look at dirt.

dirt, yes dirt.  everyone looks at the moon she says, everyone.  what's special about that?  why don't we look at something no one has ever looked at before.  let's go watch the streetlamps, let's go watch the sidewalks.

i tell her she's difficult and she tells me i'm cliche and we end up sitting on the curb in silence.  i look at the moon and she's probably looking at some car tire or the mcdonald's cup that's been thrown out a passer-by's window and i want to force her chin upward, i want to make her see that light in the sky

but i can't look at her and i can't think to touch her quivering chin because the thought of it makes me want to cry and i know she already has begun to, maybe because she'll never be an octopus or maybe because i called her a child or maybe she's just crying because

we haven't looked at the same thing in a dog-year and it's beginning to wear on us, it's beginning to take a toll and i want to look at the mcdonald's cup too or take her hand and go look at stop-signs but

i can't.  because i'm so frightened that if i give in to her ways, she'll realize how weak i am, and she'll leave me.  and i'm stubborn, i'm a wild-boar, i'm a horse at the edge of the water and i'm dying of thirst but pride denies me of water

i settle on looking at the cup through the reflection in her saltwater eyes and she asks me to stop staring and she asks me to hold her hand and she asks me what's going to happen to us and all i can say is i don't know i don't know

because i don't.  and i do.  we both know.  because i still can't look directly at the cup and she's avoiding the moon at all costs and we are breaking because we haven't looked at the same god damned thing in months and, to be honest, i don't even think we'd know how to anymore.