lilies bloom, then they die.

Two unhoused girls get crushes on each other in this gay story. (A work in progress)

lilies bloom, then they die.



“Sir! Sir! Can you sp-” Ugh, why do people always walk away? Oh, well. I have the grass to eat. It is way worse than the chicken sandwiches I remember from eight years ago, but hey. It works. Suddenly, a crying girl with butterfly wings walks by. “Hello. What’s wrong? What happened?” I stand up on my knobbly knees and ripped socks and gently hug her. “My- my parents just kicked me out of my house. I don’t know where to go. Do you know a place?” I smile. “I mean, there’s enough grass here for two. Listen, I know it sounds weird, but it works. I haven’t died from eating it and the occasional dandelion after eight years.” She wipes her face with her sleeve. “Yo- you're okay with sharing?” “Definitely! I’ve been super lonely. These people don’t mind. They saw me eating it and told me to if I needed to. But they clearly like their lawn, so I try to do it in moderation.” She smiles with her puffy eyes and gently sits on the sidewalk. “So, um. What’s your name? Mine’s Monarch.” She tells me, spreading her wings quietly as an actual butterfly. “Monarch. What a pretty name. Mine’s Graha. After my species of bumblebee.” I gently wave my wings. “Graha and Monarch. Do you get any meat or anything?” Monarch asks, managing to fly just a little bit before she gets down. “Sometimes, if I’m SUPER lucky, the people will give me extra dinner they made, but because they eat so much, they typically don’t have anything.” I look up at the sky and see the beautiful umber sky. “Sleepytime. Here. You can have this until I get the chance to make you one.” I hand her my leaf blanket, which I made during fall four years ago. “Thank you. Where do you typically sleep?” “In the tree up there, but you probably won’t like it up there, so I would suggest under the pop-up tent they never use. I wake up before the sun rises, so I can wake you up and get us to the sidewalk before they wake up. They don’t like me sleeping in the pop-up tent even though it has zero purpose.” She smiles and climbs into it. “Thank you. We should eat something before we sleep.” That’s kind of weird. “Why?” She sits up. “When you sleep, you’re fasting, which is also why breakfast is so important. So we should get a bedtime snack so we won’t be hungry while we try to sleep.” “You go to school often?” “Yeah.” “I sometimes go, but they always kick me out because I’m not wearing shoes. Maybe I should take these off, they’re kiddie socks from when I was six. Have been wearing them for the last eight years. Never slept without them on.” I lie down a couple of inches away from Monarch and tuck my wings in. “Whoa! How do you do that? I know how to release them, but not tuck them.” “Release? Why do yo- oh, wait, I think I know why.” “Yeah… I told them I was a Synia and they disowned me. My name was Lily but I changed it. I guess we should stop talking and go to sleep. Good night.” “Good night.”

“Hey, Monarch. Good morning. Come out to the sidewalk and pretend to be asleep I guess. Or don’t. It’s up to you.” She picks up her wings and flies out enough it doesn’t look like she was in the tent at all, one toe dragging the leaf blanket. I giggle. “Shut up.” She says, also laughing. “What do you do for fun?” “It depends on the day. Typically I count cars that pass by for the whole day and see how many pass from when I wake to when I fall asleep. I also like to see how many bees are interested in me.” She wiggles her wings and takes off the blanket. “Huh.” I smile at her. “It gets really boring. Sometimes, I clean their house and they let me have a bowl of ice cream or something, but I don’t typically do it because they have rats and cockroaches and ants. And food everywhere. And it stinks. And I hate going in the kitchen becau-” “Okay, I get the point.” I yawn. “Maybe we should take a nap. If you want, we can sit in the tree.” “Okay. Can you fly?” “No. I climb. After eating, I can fly high enough to get to the branch, but you’re young and light enough you can probably fly up there with no food.” I eat some grass and fly up there and climb up to the biggest branch. I yawn again and fall asleep.

“AHH!” I exclaim. I’m falling!!!!! Suddenly, Monarch flies down from the tree and catches me in her arms. It feels so… intimate. This is so hot…. I feel my ears and wings getting hotter until I know my ears are red and my wings are buzzing with embarrassment. Monarch’s ears got red just a couple of seconds before she caught me. Are we both feeling this way? There’s no way. I look up and see the gray dusk sky. “How long was I asleep?” She blushes. “Probably nine-ish hours.” “We should pull an all-nighter and just chat about life.” She smiles and runs over toward the sidewalk, giggling. “Totally!” She sets me down on the grass and sits next to me. “Y’know, I love your wings. I always wanted bumblebee wings.” I smile and blush, all the cars that pass by with suspicious drivers. “Thank you! I feel the same way!” I yawn again. “Or maybe we should just sleep.” She stares at the moon for a bit, then says, “Yeah. Maybe.” I yawn and somehow fall asleep immediately again.

I wake up and look beside me and see Monarch sleeping. After staring at the house for a bit, I step beside her, take a few steps back, and jump her to wake her up. Why? I don’t know! She wakes immediately up and sits up, her lips brushing my cheek. She giggles, both of us blushing. “Ummmmm… wait why did that feel kind of nice? Your face is warm…” I smile. “Yeah. But seriously. WHY?” I giggle some. “Should we do it again?” She stares off, before answering “Sure.”

It was short. But perfect. Her lips are just the right temperature. They taste like chocolate and milk. “Perfect.” I say. She smiles and pushes me onto my back and sits on me. “Perfect.” I blush, redder than a tomato.

“Umm… I kind of want to see how long I can sleep so… yeah. Goodnight!” ”Goodnight.” She says. It takes me a little while to fall asleep that night, but it’s still quick.

“Good morning.” I say, shaking Monarch awake. She wakes up and tries to kiss me again, so I kiss her then sit down and say, “I have to tell you something.” She sits up. “What?” I blush a bit. “So… this was obvious, like, way too long ago, but I got a crush on you. Maybe more than a crush. I feel so much love for you, we could get married. Do you want to be my girlfriend?” She smiles and kisses me softly on the hand again. “Of course!” I hug her really hard and kiss her on the back, then flip us both so she’s above me. “I love you so so so so SO much.” She smiles and crawls off me. “My little cutie pie.”

Later that night, we were hugging each other really hard and rolling around when a guy passes by on the sidewalk. Monarch didn’t notice him until he said, “You guys in love with each other?” I responded, “Monarch?” And she said “We are.” And then the man said, “Y'all got issues. If you want, I can go find you some boys to kiss. I got grandchildren 'round your age.” I stood up and said, “Sir? Boys have the crustiest lips known to man. No thank you, we’ll go be gay together now.” And I pushed him enough to set him off, but not to make him fall or anything. “Abuse. I’m calling the cops.” I responded with a, “Homophobia. I’m calling the cops.” Which, luckily, made him go on with his day without calling the cops. Yay!

That night, I look at Monarch and can only see stars. I can barely see her stand up and push someone before the stars go away. She looks at me and asks if I’m okay. Then I realize someone was standing on me and trying to suffocate me. “Yeah… I’m fine. Just a bit out of breath.” I stand up and twist to look at my back. Oh no. The person got dog poop and dirt on my shirt. “Oh no.” I turn around so Monarch can see. “Uh oh. How soon will it be till it rains?” She looks up. It’s sunny. “We could ask them for the hose… I have an undershirt.” And before she can even hear all of it, I knock on the door. They open it. “What, gay little orphan.” “Can I borrow the hose?” They look at the hose, which I’m pointing at. “Yeah. You can.”

I go up to the hose and start to spray my shirt. As I do, Monarch comes up to me and we talk about the most existential things ever. "Is water wet?" Monarch asks. "Well, I mean, wet things have water on them, so... yeah?" I answer. We giggle. "Sock sock shoe shoe or sock shoe sock shoe?" I look at her. "I haven't put on any shoes for over eight years. I don't know the heckin' answer, man!"