ghosts and replicas

I look around: all women want to look the same.

The other woman’s nudity stands as the image of lovelessness.

Because for every man who didn’t love me there was always that other. The one who did deserve the love, the love I wasn’t getting.

She is everything I’m not. As I change, she changes. Whatever it is that I’m not, that’s what she is.

I hate her. I want to hurt her and her trite, repetitive, to-be-expected shape.

There is a place in my heart for self-love. I know it exists because my heart beats and I’m glad.

There is a place also for images that replicate themselves, ghost upon ghost, bodies that turn from people into objects by sheer repetition. Whoreangels of pornography.

My daily ritual of dressing and undressing has been altered.

Oh the delight of being looked at as a ripe juicy fruit and to want to be licked, to want to be had.

Preening, plucking, smoothing, shaving, oiling, brushing, lathering, rinsing, spraying, scrunching, painting, filing, wetting, drying, powdering, uncovering, perfuming, eating, not eating, making, making. Making a pretty little thing.

But the image in the mirror cries out for the eyes of self-love.

An old lover says: You are so very sexy. You know that? I say no. Then I say yes.

Well, the answer inside me is yes, yes, I know, but I just want to be loved. Think you can do that?

I recall another lover’s parting words: You are the most beautiful thing in this world. Never forget it.

And I know he meant the inside.

Thank you my friend.

I won’t. I won’t.