I made a new friend. Her skin is honey dew. Her tattoos are stitched in, 3-D, lace. She tells me that oftentimes in life, many contrasting things are true at once. My new friend is nuance. My new friend is wielding an empty wine bottle at a party, waving it around like someone’s about to be unlucky. My new friend steals, fucks and burps. My new friend feels like Big Sister, she feels like Kali. She promises to braid my hair, but not in the white girl way. She says we’ll go to Paris, that we’ll get matching vulgar words tatted on our asses. She’s older, so I know she won’t hurt me. She’s prettier, so I know she won’t want me. In that way at least. In other ways, I am wanted; I am loved because she uses my full name. My new friend loves me, she loves to go to the beach with me, to the grocery store with me, to the man’s house with me, to the other man’s house, to the ex’s house to break things, to the father’s house to upheave, to the mother’s house for chai. My new friend made a vase for me, years ago, years before I really knew her. Back then, it was a vase made by a stranger. Now, it is a vase made by my friend. My friend makes vases and movie sets made from clay men. I think she is gorgeous, maybe the most beautiful thing in this world, but then her art is even better. My new friend is chaos. She’s the coyote that sneaks onto the highway. She’s the faerie that plopped into our universe via some wormhole. She’s the vintage Betsy Johnson dress I wear on special days. She’s everything I am but packaged better. My new friend is a dreamy high, she feels like laughing if laughing never stopped. My new friend has toe rings and a tattoo of a swirl on her hand that she got laser removal on two times now, so now it really swirls, it swims, it softens into the honey. I don’t know her very well. I don’t know her last name and I’ve never witnessed her cry. I know she gets very sad sometimes, but part of me can’t believe it. Part of me thinks she’s Barbie. My new friend is Barbie if Barbie had done some critical thinking about gender and race and about the world, really. Also if Barbie were hilarious and sexy in a crow-like way. My new friend reminds me of a crow. Like a crow, my new friend is caw-cawing, caw-cawing so I must go. I’m really feeling good about this. Like this could be a new friend.