I’ve always been aware of it.
The flat yet hungry look some men get when they look at me. They look at, but not in.
They imagined, wove their personalized fantasy and threw it over my shoulders. It’s always so heavy. Impossibly so, but I bore it with a smile through gritted teeth. Every girl wants to be desired, right?
I endured until I was a rage-filled wraith.
I’m not your manic pixie dream girl. Fuck that.
I’m not manic, nor am I a goddamned pixie. My bones are strong, and I am tall, so I can look you in the eye. I’m no dream. I breathe, eat, shit, sleep, just like you.
Most of all, I am no girl.
I’m in my third decade. I’ve earned my high standards. Every single one of my scars. Some are physical. Most are not, but they are mine.
For years, I lived in terror that he would see that I am no panacea. I would not, could not heal him. I am no savior. I am limping as much as he, am just as frightened. My thoughts are just as disheveled, if not more.
What happens when I shake the fantasy off my shoulders, and he sees that I need him more than he needs me? That I wasn’t built to organize his life, give him purpose, clean his dirty laundry and constantly replenish his deflated ego?
What of my ego, if I find no significant nourishment in serving his? What of my purpose, my dirty laundry?
Will he raw his knuckles on it, wash me and make me new, just like he expected me to do with his?
What happens to the silent few, the women who cannot, or will not be a mirror for a man’s dreams? Is it selfishness, or is it that my own desire burns me to distraction?
I don’t know anymore. I am no vessel. There is no end to me to stop the flow. I am no lake. I am an ocean. I go on forever. Churn with fierce and frightful imaginings, so far removed from white picket fences.
Still, I dream of love, but free.
What man will dive deep into me, be swallowed up, despite his fear of drowning?
There is so much in me, so much to share with a man who dares. I am not easy. I am not always kind.
I hurt, but there can be shared comfort, unlike any he’s felt before, in the healing.
