Let’s Play Barbie
“Poets are damned… but see with the eyes of angels.” – Allen Ginsberg
I look down and see a smiling cut, layered like an onion; a red streak. I don’t know how it got there, but it stings. Dunkin’ doesn’t have any lids, so I carefully balance the coffee in my hands, making sure I don’t soil the books at the store with whipped cream and sugar. I use Saunders and Wallace like a yo-yo – up-down, up-down.
The man beside me coughs into the crux of his arm, a habit we have all become accustomed to. The lone man in the waste land of letters, deciding between T.S. Elliot and Sylvia Plath. I don’t think he’s ready for female pain. He won’t chew on it. Empty of an iron stomach, he fritters away, down the stairs, and out into the breeze.
My sunglasses are a bee-stung amber with black Pollock dots. They all know. I know they know. It’s in their hands, and their twitching fingers. They all see I’m faking it. Every step I take is followed by counting. One. Two. Three. Put one foot in front of the other. That’s it, just like that.
We’re all pretenders here; sheets of mirage, skin tight. It’s not a persona, just an enhanced version of ourselves to get us through the day. Two men in black suits smoke Marlboros outside the Rolex store, and a woman in Louboutins walks by, leaving a cloud of Chanel No5 in her wake. I, with my long coat, move through the…
