#ndpride

She arrived one day twitchy, shoulders hunched beneath a weight too heavy for twelve. Her eyes scanned the room, not looking for anyone, but broadcasting something wild and unfiltered.

I watched her,

Quiet and cautious, muttering to her surroundings But I saw the beacon

where they saw the flaw..and tried to shape her

with scratches and bite marks ADHD, they’d say

"she cant stay, or be tamed" but only I saw the strange grace of someone not quite synced with the world around her.

She left, and I was struck by the thought: her download was never complete, running a different kind of code, at odds with the programs all around her. No wonder she ran she was a puzzle piece forced into the wrong box.

I saw her that day, but I was too young to know what to do, how to help. Maybe seeing is what matters the first language of care but I still wonder if she felt it, if the moment landed. If she did, I think I’d know her still.

Some systems are built to contain when they should be wild, to smooth out the rough edges instead of letting someone explore the far borders of the map.

If there’s a crime here, it is not in the glitch but in the hands that tried to overwrite her wild syntax with their own order.

I hope, wherever she is, her code is running free.