I did not have the physical experiences to back up this assertion about myself, and it was often a source of embarrassment. I had been out to my friends for over a year now, but the realization of my identity had come on an emotional basis, not a physical one.

вЂњNo,вЂќ I said as I felt my cheeks flush with rose. The question was sudden: вЂњHave you ever kissed a girl?вЂќ

вЂњFine, IвЂ™m sober and tired so I came back.вЂќДЄt this, we both giggled like middle school girls gossiping at the sleepover party. Meeting my gaze, she said, вЂњHow was the rest of the night?вЂќ I felt the blankets settle like dust upon my body, and I didnвЂ™t expect to see her as conscious as she was when I glanced over. вЂњOf course,вЂќ and the blankets swooped up above her extended arm as I crawled into the warm cavern that this motion created.

The lump of blankets rustled and I replied to the gesture, вЂњYou can stay in my bed if you want, but can you move over?вЂќ She was always the first of my friends to go back after a night out. I sensed the corner of my mouth turn up slightly into a smirk responding to the limb lump of blankets she had become in my bed. I stumbled to the bed and nudged her with a gently closed fist, the other hand rubbing my eyelid to resuscitate sensual vitality. The alcoholic elation that had been humming in a closed circuit between muscles and mind had faded into a drooping sobriety that weighed on my eyelids. There was something about this tragic isolation, this ability to describe the sweatered horse off the side of the highway and the inability to make others see it as I had, that created a spiritual deja-vu. More surprising than the loneliness of this experience was its familiarity. Instead of other passengersвЂ™ eyes being alight with the sudden awareness of a simple joy, I was met with closed eyes, either asleep or possessing a mechanical deadness that relented no life or emotion. I discovered this laugh elicited by the sweatered horse to be the latter, losing momentum as silence inserted lactic acid into its force. There are two types of laughs: the type that is nourished by the responsive laugh of others and the type that echoes back, heard and understood by you alone. The horse sunning itself in this attire pulled a clumsy laugh from my gut, a reflexive reaction to an animal possessing a persona so humanesque. Almost instinctively, I fixated on the gray knit sweater with a folded turtleneck that hugged the contours of her poised muscles. The element of this mare that was pulled into the spotlight of my memory, however, was the absence of a traditional horse blanket. With these pieces of an image being instantaneously threatened by the fallibility of time and memory, I frantically recalled the way her ears flicked backwards at a perfect diagonal and how her wet black pupils were covered by eyelids lined by thick brown lashes. Allowing my shoulder blades to rest again upon the upholstered seat, I attempted to stitch together the flash of fragmented observations. The brilliance of a winter sun found a stage on her forehead, the proximal gloss of her chestnut coat glimmering for an instant before the wake of the coach bus erased her from my perception.

Horse blanket girl no blur