Don't Say

“Don’t say it.”

The school counselor says he can’t talk to her anymore. He could be fired. The football players grope her in the hallway, and the math teacher rarely looks above her chest. But she’s the one deemed outrageous, portrayed as a predator. If there are others like her, she’s not allowed to know. The library had been purged of books about people like her. She’s told to lie. To disappear.

They try to paint over her rainbow, whitewash her out of existence. She tries to hang on, to stay alive until it’s safe for the colors to burst through.