I'm Sorry, I Don't Think We've Met

When I was 16 I had the most beautiful boyfriend in the world. Really. He looked like Jim Morrison, without a shirt, a strand of love beads over his hairless chest. Maybe that's why I loved him, because God knows I loved Jim, and to make the deal sweeter, this gorgeous blonde kid with big curls at his neck even wrote poetry like Jim's, so, there.

He could draw, too, my Adonis, and at the time I thought he was the greatest artist ever to sketch with a pencil in a book. (He has since been replaced by my oldest daughter.) Serious and sly, he would draw anything anywhere...except me. He never drew me. Not my face, my mouth, my eye. After years and reams of paper, I asked him why. "You wouldn't like it," he said, "I'd draw you as you are, and not how you want me to see you." He thought I wouldn't recognize myself.

Fast forward twenty-some years, and I know now what he meant. Because I never can recognize myself. Sometimes, in my mind, I see myself as a sexy siren, a feminine fox with a great walk and a nice mouth. The with-it girl that guys want. The woman that you can't guess her age, you'd guess a bit low. A passionate lover who can't wait to be unbuttoned. Other times, I see an ogre. A fat, ugly, pockmarked lump. A crazy-ass chick that only a crazy-ass ogre would want. An aging beast that makes a solid friend, but you wouldn't want to see her naked. You wouldn't dare touch her, please her, love her. Even if she'd let you, but she probably won't.

Today when I checked the mirror, I didn't see either of those. I could see a bit of my grandmother's face, a shine my dark eye, a too-broad nose, set on a rounding body. Nice shoulders, though. Maybe my old sweetheart should have just drawn my shoulder, my line to my clavicle, a few dark freckles and lots of light ones. That, I might recognize. That part of me doesn't seem to change.

And who wants to love that? Fucking shoulder...Is it enough to rip the clothes off a woman, throw her down, kiss her round belly? Is it enough to make a man want to bite that shoulder just to get a part of me in him? To say my name, to beg my name?

Nope. But, it's all I've got, all I can rely on right now. It's a start. So, a drawing of me might be something I would like. I wouldn't be able to wonder, and waver. I'd learn to recognize myself, maybe. And maybe learn to like that pencil-sketched girl, too. I bet she's kind of pretty.