Inventory

credit: Emily Nielson

I look straight at you, into you and between you, I travel slowly taking the winding road across the landscape that is you. I wonder sometimes if I will ever really know you, or if you will always be the hidden one.

Often I take inventory starting from the bottom up, but on occasion, I start from the top. The start is never the difficulty and either direction brings pleasure, it’s always at the halfway point where the struggle begins. Exquisite pain lures me, the faithful sadomasochist, and you trap me with your siren call.  My mind struggles against the obsession, knowing what is in store, but despite the screaming in my head, you pull me in, and seduce me with the whisper of Venus; so here I stand again facing you in the silver gilded glass, bare and naked, ready to begin.

Feet long, especially for a woman, but slender with just a good enough arch to look sexy in sky high heels. Ankles and shins, like those of a dancer, sculpted and strong but capable of modeling for Jimmy Choo. Having run many marathons to flee the whip, sometimes for real but most often in your own head, they are capable of fight and flight. The smooth journey ends pretty soon after it began and with the beginning of the knees I start to struggle. It isn’t the patella, meniscus, ACL or MCL themselves, despite the three inch scar on one from a decade-old surgery; it is always what follows that starts the journey downhill. Flashes of images of Hollywood’s elite and toned bodies, of girls at the gym, thighs toned and strong, while yours are like cottage cheese. Your legs rub against each other while walking. They are tough enough to lock a man in tight if ever there was a time for pleasure, but will never be called steel.

My vision skims along to the lines, shadows and valleys, dipping and weaving along the surface. Arms and hands strengthened by daily labor, the actions of pushing against the walls of a prison. Muscles trained to defend against blows and assault, hands held out to stop the tide but always some seeps through and enters with no mercy. Your hands are crowned by stubby roughness that makes you try to hide them. They are further evidence of your failure to live up to the ideal of the fair and delicate.

Once I have started I am compelled to finish even as the damage twists away on the inside. A neck not slender or long, but its back willing to be caressed and seduced, the most sensual place, leading to the slope of shoulders, strong yet soft. Will you ever meet another, who wants to touch his lips to you, just a hint of his breath and a small taste, starting the dance that can lead to the finale?

I want to skip over the middle but I know I cannot and my stomach cramps inside as it faces what is real and cannot be hidden. Many lifetimes ago, you might have have been considered the toast of Rubens or Rembrandt, as you lie on a couch and seduce with your curves. Hips to grip while the back and forth, thrust and retreat of sex and love overtake you. The curves and belly, that once symbolized fertility, wealth and health, are today viewed with looks of disgust. The look of sympathy, patronizing and cold as the medical world tell you to shed that section of you, and men who glance once and turn their back on you because concave and cardboard are more appealing.

Standing at yet another event, where the meat market begins even before you walk into the room. Another moment, of yet another mother hen matchmaker who looks you over, and then dismisses you before you even open your mouth, because you  dare to partake in feeding not just your soul but your body as well. It is filled with eons of moments, of glances by men who look right past you, because you will never measure up to the Barbie doll in their minds. Well-meaning friends and family suggest diets, tell you how it shouldn’t matter but it just does, how the secular world has infiltrated and they are to blame.

I laugh at the irony. I see you as you walk the streets of the boroughs, free from the prison of your home, not waiting, day after day, year after year for a call that never comes.  The soul be damned, it all seems to say, as it doesn’t matter anyway.

This is the part I hate the most. I wish for a needle to just suck it all out, or a knife to slice the fat away, because despite all efforts you will otherwise never measure up. When I am brave enough and don’t shadow my eyes or curl up on the couch or the bed and cry, or busy myself because once the flow of tears begins, it is a challenge to end, and they do not change what is flesh and blood, only when I am brave, do I continue moving upward.

Even within the breakdown there is beauty. Two swollen peaks, that spill over from their restraints, the tips sensitive and tender, capable of giving sustenance or pleasure, flush symbols of femininity and despite all of the other disgust, and the displeasure of others, they are uniform and proud.

At the apex: the delta, the pinnacle, where with a little bit of time and pressure, pleasure can start to flow and explode, moist, sticky and pungent, guarded by tender gates but with a willing guard ready to surrender. Uncharted territory. Will there ever be a time when someone will want enough to take the challenge and take you down that path? The entrance to the space empty and aching to be filled, to be a container for precious life, as that famous clock ticks ever ominously, minute by minute, day by day, year after year.

Besides the middle, your face is the hardest part to gaze at, into and through. Dark penetrating eyes, large and heavy-lidded, they are an ordinary brown that belie the many secrets they hold. Will you ever be found and gazed upon with tenderness so that you can release the guard and send her on a much needed respite, and allow yourself to be seen?

Ears of ordinary size but easy to pick up on the snippets of conversation and comments that are not meant to sting but do nonetheless. A nose large like the rest of the tribe, but at this point not willing to cut into to change, because will it make all that much of a difference? Strands of dead cells that grow long and wild in curls and waves that can hide so much, and with a flip from shoulder to shoulder announce to the world, here I am.

We can’t leave out the lips, nothing extraordinary, no extra large bottom lip that is perfect for kissing and little love bites, no largesse of blessing there, but they are yours, and despite their ordinariness, can be quite capable of so much. For there is where words, thoughts, ideas, and dreams can flow. They are symbols of passion that can tell me who you are, call to the other of where you hope to go.

Brutality comes in all forms, and I am a willful taskmaster. I view you with cruel honesty, with unflinching eyes. It is painful to see the daily reminders of inadequacy that seem to lurk no matter how beautiful, powerful and special the inside seems to be. You fight to be beautiful, to accept the soul shining even when it seems to be a losing battle, the battle of a million voices strong telling you, you are only worthy of love if you are among the lucky chosen of concave and flatness.

I fear that you will never see me.