Hermit Crab Using A Skull For A Shell

Hermit crab using a skull for a shell

The Diary of a Teenage Girl - Marielle Heller (2015)

James Potter: seventeen, hair got struck by lightning at age four and hasn’t sat down since, knuckles that jut out, holds his wand between his teeth to impress girls- to impress the girl, doesn’t own one pair of matching socks, the kind of attractive that fills the ribs, fills the shoulder blades, fills the heart, Sirius painted his nails once and he kept the polish on all week, sees the girl before registering anyone else in the room, young organs pumping young blood, wired to himself, to his boys, to the girl, can tell what you’re about to say before you say it, he’s just sort of like that, has a habit of leaning arms on peoples shoulders, starts the trust fall before anyone realises they’re  meant to be catching him

Sirius Black: seventeen, eats whipped cream by the fork full, rolls up the sleeves of his robes, begins most conversations with: you absolute fuck, column of his throat running down the neck like water, leaves his text books all over school, made of gut feeling, of instinct, of starting before you know how to finish, a part of him still stuck in that house, with the door slamming, with his mother yelling, with the world ending,  he is the bomb going off in the swimming pool, he has probably made a bomb go off in the swimming pool, smoking just outside the door- look- you can see the smoke, you can see the shaking hands.

Remus Lupin: seventeen,  jumpy, long eyelashes, the sullen quiet of fog in winter, scars up the arms, round the neck, across the chest, eyes that stare as if they are waiting for permission, plays the same records until he’s mouthing the words in his sleep, gives out flowers for gifts, sarcasm that could stop the heart, soft, like the skin above your collar bone, like stained glass windows with light through them, like seeing a star in a textbook, knowing that  something that good is out there even if it is far away, often has wind billowing through his baggy t-shirts, pulls out his bottom lip when thinking, at night wakes up sweating, dreaming of blood in his mouth, the kind you get when you rip an arm off, when you lick the bone clean.

Peter Pettigrew: seventeen, socks right to the knee, eating an ice cream, has a sore neck from always looking up, raw fingernails- bitten to the cuticles, full of fear, oozing fear, could fill cathedrals with this fear, burns books for no reason, unmade bed, the flush of a cheek that is bloated, a mound of blood, sits on the floor because there is no room at the table, counts on his fingers, pulled a muscle when walking up the fourth staircase, shuts his eyes, opens them, realises he is still in his own skin, pale, a stick of white, unassuming, like flowers, or the moment the ground gives way, all at once, as if it was going to all along

Tadashi Shoji at New York Fashion Week Fall 2017