• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 10
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A Disappearing Act

Sometimes I think there is no way to survive without dissembling. There’s a reason we have traditions, roles, expectations - guidelines which keep us tethered to Earth, to the harsh animal elemental reality of living, so that we don’t go floating away into the starless unknown like the red balloon. In the dream of the world I am young and I am beautiful and I lie on yachts drunk on the blueness of the ocean, slapping against the hull in a rhythm as cool and soothing as pressed linen in summer. I am that rarest of things, a woman who meets expectations. Above me the sails are white and red, white like purity, red like sensuality, and I balance between the two with the innocence of my pink-nailed hands and the carnality of my crimson lips. Lipstick has a taste all its own, heavy and sweet and chemical like poison, and while the waves beat on and the sails strain I dissolve into the empty waiting spaces of the universe.
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