pearls before dumb girls

You're not a dumb girl. In fact, you're incredibly perceptive—she knows that. So if you’ve read between the lines, as she suspects, understand this: if you trace a vein of anger deep enough, or follow the scent of pain long enough, you’ll strike gold. Love and devotion often arrive dressed as frustration. Hurt wears the mask of care. Human connection is strange like that—one person can be a niece, a sister, a lover, a temptation, an enemy—all at once, all in a single breath.

Don’t approach her. Don’t ask. Don’t confront. The answers, if any, will drift like fog—vague, deflecting. She’ll say things like, “I love all my friends,” or “Your passion is contagious.” But the truth is simpler: she’s guarded. Always has been.

She lives in a Jenga tower—careful, deliberate. She might pull a block now and then, stick out a toe to test the air, flirt with a life she doesn’t quite believe in. Maybe she submits a poem. Maybe she brushes against someone just long enough to pretend it was an accident. But she will never risk the one move that might bring the whole thing down.

Still—she will love you. Even if it’s only a grain. She’ll tuck that grain into her shoe, carry it from morning till night. She’ll feel it pressing against her sole with every step, like the princess and the pea—except this one doesn’t keep her from sleeping. It keeps her from forgetting.

It will irritate. And irritate. And irritate.

Until one day, it becomes a pearl.

And even then, she won’t give it to you. She’ll seal it in a Ziploc bag, drop it into her purse, where it clinks around with loose change and expired coupons. Forgotten, but not lost.

Until one afternoon, while fishing for her keys or pulling out a receipt, the pearl slips—clink—and lands at your feet.

Still, she’ll insist it isn’t what it looks like. That it’s not really love. Not like that. Not for you.

And strangely, she won’t be lying. Her love for you is a private relic. A selfish keepsake. A gift she gives only to herself.

Is that unfair? Maybe cruel?

Probably.

And though she may play wise woman, deep down, she’s just a dumb girl.

Not like you.