You Know Me Well

by Nina LaCour

All the lesbians I know are in some way smarter than me, or at least seem to know the world a little more. They also tend to read a lot of books.

You can be naked with someone and remain unknowable. You can be someone’s secret without ever really knowing what the full secret is.

I know you well.

Say anything enough times and it’s only words.

Only I seem to be the control to that experiment with my placebo heart. I rarely make it through the first date. The first half hour, maybe. Then … I just don’t like them much. And I don’t like me very much when I’m trying to impress them. So I stop. Escape when I can. And, of course, long painfully for the one girl I can’t have.”

“So not necessary,” Katie grumbles, and I love her for it.

I know him well.

“The heart is a treacherous beast.” “But it means well.”

the young and queer and beautiful.