Depollute Me

Abbey Griffin

I liked Leith Ross before I ever met Marie.

They made good music–soft, but not too ambient. Listening to their songs was like listening to spoken word poetry.

I would lay spread eagle in my full bed, toes just barely curling over the edge of the footboard, and close my eyes to hear them better over the dull roar of my fan. (When I was little and first started listening to music to fall asleep, my mom used to tell me that the quieter I set the volume, the better I could hear it. I don’t know why I still believed her.)

After I met Marie, Leith Ross became an even bigger aspect of my life. She loved them so much that she wanted to be them. We would sit in her bedroom with the door cracked open, so close I could smell her chips and salsa breath, as she plucked out “We’ll Never Have Sex” on her guitar. Once, before we started dating but during our homoerotic friendship phase, I slept over at her house and she helped me learn all the words to the chorus. We set up her phone to record us and sang it together alongside her stumbling guitar. She made up her own harmony. It didn’t sound that good, but she was so proud of herself that it didn’t matter.

You look perfect, you look different

I don't wonder about your indifference

If I said you could never touch me

You'd come over and say I looked lovely

Nothing happened at that sleepover. After we finished showing everyone the video of us singing like we were still five years old, desperate for our moms to shower us with compliments, I curled up on the floor with a Gravity Falls blanket and she passed out in the opposite corner. We couldn’t share the bed, after all, and she wanted things to be fair. I remember laying in the dark and listening to her intermittent giggles as I tried to fall asleep. She made it borderline impossible, because I always wanted to know what was so funny, and she never stopped showing me.

I wanted to kiss her, then. I wanted to kiss her the way Leith Ross describes in their song, soft and sweet and halting. But we wouldn’t kiss for a few more months, and when we finally did, it wasn’t how I pictured it: devoid of any other intentions, kissing just to kiss.

Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me

Not to make me cry

It was simple, you are sweetness

Let's just sit a while

I can’t listen to “We’ll Never Have Sex” anymore. Not without picturing the face she makes when she plays. The barely there smile, the furrowed brow, the half-shut eyes. The quiet intimacy of two girls who love each other, loving each other. It’s the same face she made after we kissed for the first time, like her body was remembering the song.