and let me kick you off a bungee

Of course I fucking saw him.

He was a blurred, distorted shape, twisted and almost inhuman in the way he morphed with the world beyond him. I think perhaps this is because my skin is not bared to him, my nose is where I see best, and he's residing in my blind spot. But I can see him, smell him, like some lurking predator in the bushes, some creep. My spine tingles at the idea of someone following me (who even wants something so mangled). I don't know what to do, whether I should run or continue to pretend I do not see him and hopes that his warm figure slowly slips back into the nothingness.

With his lingering at the edge of my vision, it's easy to forget about him.

But when he opens his mouth, I think he's very present in my mind. I cannot tell what I feel, to hear someone else who isn't Apa speak the way we do to one another, ears sliding back and head turning completely to look closely at the man before me. He is stocky, thick but not overly so. Heated horns frame his face (they must be warm from exposure to the sunlight) and a lengthy tail drags behind him— why is he here? What fucking right does he have to say that to me?

It doesn't even cross my mind how he knows the language, that perhaps we are one in the same, just that he fucking insulted me— he insulted me in a tongue I thought was something precious, shared between blood of my father, a safety net when the world became too much and my body fell apart piece by piece under the pressure of its own existence.

It's impossible to decide now whether I want to slip away into the rushing waters behind me and let myself be consumed by the depths or allow myself to be set free, to tear him apart with venomous words. With trembling knees I take a step forward, focused on his burning figure as my fury eats away at the anxiety of yelling so aggressively at a stranger (fuck him for being such an asshole). "Mi volt az?" I feel smug, speaking so easily to him in the same tongue that he'd insulted me in, thinking that perhaps I wouldn't understand (how unfortunate for him).

"Mondd a szemembe, faszszopó." I clench my teeth, spitting words I didn't think I would ever need to use. It feels almost good to let such foul language drop from my lips, weight lifting from my chest as I swear up a storm towards the shitty man before me. "Nézd ki beszél, ici pici fasz."

I am not a deaf, brain dead child who could just let such a thing pass by without thought— no, I am the child who fights back, the one who spits in your face, pulls your hair, bites your hand and screams at you for being such a bitch. It's a mistake to do such an awful thing to such a damaged, emotionally disastrous child— you never know what you might get. The man before me gets unlucky, getting a taste of my unbridled emotion as I burn before him.