Shiny things had never tempted her. Diamond rings didn’t widen her eyes. Fancy restaurants didn’t make her feel important or sophisticated. A GQ model in a Lamborghini might make her giggle for a moment but nothing more.

What gripped her was the dirt of life. Ink under skin. Cigarette smoke stitched within a faded sweatshirt.

She liked the hum and hammer of old washing machines.

She preferred to sit on the floor or curl up in a windowsill or perch on a counter-top. The only furniture she liked was the kind with tangled sheets or this one old couch that smelled like grass.

If the dishes were dirty it rarely bothered her. Neither did laundry on the floor. When she did clean she paused every other minute to dance and enjoyed it so much that she wondered why she didn’t clean more often.

She liked choruses of frogs and singing with anyone or no one.

She liked bare feet by campfires and friends made in nights that faded into mornings before sleep could interrupt.

She liked swimming in lakes under stars. She didn’t like swimsuits.

She liked rain and puddles and fog over hidden houses.

She liked the eccentrics, people who spoke puzzles and held stories in every scar and wrinkle.

She liked mazes of alleyways with tired bricks and conversations on fire escapes or by dumpsters.

She liked to be tucked away in corners and books with tattered binding that proved the words within were well loved.

She liked to wear flannel that was too big and tank tops that were too small.

She liked walls quickly painted as canvases without frames.

She liked freckles that punctuated perfection, noses that were too big and hair so red it threatened to burn at the touch. She liked trails of blue that shown through skin, the veins that reminded her of a heart beating.

She liked to forget the blank walls of sterility and the cutting binds of sternness.

Sometimes she liked solitude, but she hated to be alone.