To Flip Through the Pages of Vogue

This life is almost entirely fictitious
We all hang in a delicate balance
My sweater is too loose,
Her lips to thin
It all bucks and arches to the point of panic
Don’t make me secrete more information
Than you can handle
Blessed be those who hear
Aim to be one who sees
Because my sight extends beyond
Silicone and Botox and collagen

A straight razor to the wrist
Might do some more good, but not you
I’ve started to consider a cattle prod
In the face to wake Them all up
As though you attached a lightening rod
To bring good graces your way
All I feel is the electric current
Of voyeuristic absence

You pushed so hard for that big break
I turned down indecent proposals,
Although you urged me
To use Them for us, for US
But I loved you too much
We’ll never get discovered in this
Sickly violet fluorescent light
My suit rumpled, baggy
And yours suggestively tight

“We could be better than this”
she yawns, obstinate, pouting ineffectively
her lips like thin pink ribbons
glossed to perfection, devoid of injection
I gathered her in my arms and pressed those
Lips with a freshly manicured index finger
A tear and a cheek and we felt we had failed
Already, at 18
Why not let go the hold on imagined perfection
Let our lips press gently, hold each other all night?
Because
If I am not enough for all of Them
How can I fill you?

I grew up with the sense that my
Future was like my breasts
Small, taut, so full of possibility with
Maturity that never developed
Her erratic breathing each night
Spurred thoughts that my life
Was more greatly in need of augmentation
And she clung to me
Both in passionate, fingernailed embrace
And in searching silence on the train
As if she believed me her lucky charm,
My smile of approval her salvation
Our successes inevitable,
If I merely said so.

One night in April I left her
Helpless, erratic in our bed
Sought one of Them out, undressed,
Climaxed, and left my
Comp card conspicuously, hauntingly
Beside him on the pillow
I let her believe he had discovered me
While walking in the park
A fluke, good fortune
And it was – for us, for US

Augmented life bounced forth a
Cleavage of deceit, They were all the
Same, I used each of Them while
Keeping her clear in my mind –
Remember? I could see.
The future, our future, her hips, the
Light on her shoulders, nipples
She and I in this together
She profited inexplicably, trustingly
I could completely forget each of Them
Beneath me
Bright futures, bright eyes, thick lips
And big tits
You and I, a spread in Glamour, plastic,
Airbrushed, fictitious
Just as our lives had become.


July 4, 2003