An Eyeful

You think I’m a mannequin, don’t you? Well I’m not. I’m a woman. Not a clothes-horse, not a dummy, not a MANnequin, but a woman.

But you’ve galvanized me (not in the animating sense; in the coating sense. Your stares are so arctic, so lacking in fellow feeling, you’ve frozen me solid.) You think it’s your right. To stare. But you see nothing of me because you expect nothing of me. And of course it’s never occurred to you that you’re the reason I can’t move.

If you had a shred of decency you’d find me a blanket. You might even think of finding a scarf, for my head. But why am I even thinking like this? You haven’t a clue what it’s like to be me because you don’t even think I am a me.

So all I’ll say is this: staring has consequences. The more you stare the more I’ll haunt you. Not directly, you understand, I’m more subtle than that (see how I’m not looking straight at you, but just to your right). If I turned my head, or even moved my eyes to look directly at you, you’d die of shock. So I’ll be the unwelcome vision who interrupts your dreams, every night.

Until you take a good look at yourself.
Until you ask yourself how it is that we’re different.
Until you ask yourself why it is that I haunt you.
Until you give your own self an eyeful.