he doesn't think she's pretty enough to love.

she picks lint from the sleeves of a sweater
washed too many times, the colors, fading.
as he entertains a collage of faces she will
never get to know better because she is hollow
and they are not and somehow she thinks they
know this.

it is november or it is december but never june
because there is a possibility of snow and the air
is too cold to ever consider swimming in. she is
drinking and imagining herself floating at the bottom
of the can she holds in her free hand for
dear life so it seems because the atmosphere is
strangling and she doesn't want to grow as predictable
as this. and they are all laughing at something.

and part of her believes it is her. there is too much
breathing going on in this room and the walls look as
though they are ready to close everyone in so she searches
for all possible exits and focuses on a window because
doorways were never any good at keeping anyone out for
long. there is too much passing through all at once.
she cannot think straight so she settles on not thinking
at all.

but he still doesn't think she is pretty enough to love.

and she refuses to wear time shackled to her wrist so
minutes are exploding into hours without her truly knowing.
she only knows she can't take much more of this and the
faces are pushing closer and the voices are growing louder
and he just grabbed somebody's ass. she hears it in the tone

of his laugh. and her mouth is moving but her words are getting
tangled in the cigarette smoke and nobody listens anyway
because words of strangers are easy to shrug away and she is
the strangest thing they have ever seen.

and the corner of a room has always been her home, her secret confidante where she finds the strength to just be because he doesn't want her to leave but he never asks her to stay. love is such
an unusual thing, keeping her here tied up in ribbons to him,
shredding herself into pieces just to try and fit in.

and later, he asks her "did you have a good time and wasn't that
(thing that happened) so wild and so&so is still crazy as ever
and that girl thought i really wanted her and everyone in the
room couldn't get enough of me it was like i was the funnest thing
they have ever seen and i guess that i am. i guess that i am.
but you never talked don't you like all my friends i don't know
why you have to always get so weird it's not like they hate you

they just don't really know you the way that i know you maybe
next time you should show them how fun you can be instead of just
hugging the space where two walls meet."

but she is asleep. no. no. she is awake because from her the heaviest
sigh escapes and she looks at him and there's such fire in his
eyes and she knows this fire and needs it to feel alive so she smiles.

she smiles.

and says, "there are cracks in the corner they should see about
getting fixed. i was thinking termites but that can't be it. and
one wall is a shade darker than the other. but you really can't
notice it until you're right there up on it like i was tonight
while you were wooing the masses. next time i'll try harder to
give them all chances. i promise, next time i'll try harder to
give them all chances." but she's thinking how many chances will
it take to be enough....

and yet, he still doesn't think she's pretty enough to love.

12/04/2003

Author's Note: wow. this is long.

Posted on 12/04/2003
Copyright © 2025 Olivia Weinkein