Nine Times

I think I'm the most attractive girl in the room 9 times out of 10.

I'm only 5'4 but with some seductive high heels I'm model material. What little fat there is on my body has distributed itself appropriately to the right places. My ribs and hip bones poke out just enough. My skin is as flawless as it was when I was a baby, only now it's complemented by a great array of tattoos, all of which flow together in grayscale, beautifully. My eyes are big and blue, my lashes are long and dark, my hair graces my entire back in waves of mahogany. I can be peaceful and save animals, pull on a tye dye bandana and be a hippie if I'm going to the town square or one of the thrift shops there. I can be dark and smoke weed, go heavy on the eyeliner and black boots and be a rocker chick if I'm going to a concert. I can be studious and ace any test, cover my tattoos with a nice sweater and be a goody two shoes if I'm going to an interview or a class.

I change my persona to match the occasion, the day, the hour. I change my mind to fit the argument or the resolution or the person I'm with. I can hold a Bible and sing hymns and believe in God and pray with my grandparents at the dinner table or I can be an atheist and think the believers are fools and keep my head up while everyone else bows theirs in submission. I can be strong and fight through the everyday pain of living with lupus and still go to the comedy show an hour after coming back from the E.R. or I can be weak and worry and cry and fall into a valium-induced sleep while my boyfriend holds my trembling body and worries, too. I look into the future and see what I want to see, sometimes I see myself going back to college, becoming a professor, teaching in foreign countries and one day retiring to foster endless litters of poor, orphaned kittens. Sometimes I see myself settling here, eventually molding into a stay at home girlfriend or wife or whatever the fuck I would be, writing and reading to pass the time, constantly rationalizing that what he and I have is worth what I would have given up, drawing the blinds to keep out the Phoenix sun. And my favorite, but somehow unattainable, future - I see myself downing pills and falling into a convulsive and final sleep, slitting my wrists with broken glass and watching the blood wash down the drain, finding a gun and leaving a brainy mess for the unlucky person to find me.
The truth is that there is no truth. There is no true self. I am everything and anything and none of it is real or honest or genuine. I am a flux of meaningless actions and garbage emotions continuously revelling in a pointless mudpit that the naive would call life. I am not understandable because there is nothing to understand.

At times I look in a mirror or in a passing reflective store window and I think my thighs are fat or my nose is too long. Always shortly after, I see another mirror and think I'm that 9 out of 10 times most attractive girl in the room. At times I think I don't have much sense and that I'm utterly insane. Always shortly after, something happens to turn the tables - my professors are astounded by my papers and beg my permission to publish them, my doctors are enlightened and admittedly embarassed to find out that I know more about my illness than they do. I have received compliments, both on my looks and on my intelligence, that most people only dream of being told. I have never been handed an exam or an essay back with anything but a bright red A across the top. I used to turn bright red, too, when my mother would brag about me and my accomplishments that now mean less than nothing.

I can be a therapist and a healer and a listener to a friend that needs to vent about whatever trivial shit is wrong. Whether it is Jacob and his missed lines in drama class and also feels as if he has fake friends or Corrine feeling guilty for cheating on her fiance and also very tired from her part time job at Subway. I can say the right things and leave them with a smile and myself, I have a smirk that wonders what they would do if they were me. After a few moments of contemplation, I come to the conclusion that I don't give a fuck. I can also be a heartbreaker, a menace, an outright bitch if I want to be. I can blatantly lie, I can ruthlessly insult, I can give them glares that will send shivers down their spines. I can send pleasant shivers if I gaze over my shoulder at Ryan as I'm slipping my dress off or I can send horrific ones if I look at my mother after a fight over why she threw my clothes out the front door. She told me she doesn't want to see me anymore - I can not blame her and understand and try to mend our broken bond or I can be spiteful and unforgiving, forever answering with an annoyed sigh the "are you okay" phone calls.

I love myself and I hate myself. I love the people and the world around me and I hate the people and the world, too. I can wake up smiling and welcoming the day ahead or sobbing and hoping this is the day I'll die. Sometimes I fall asleep easily and happily, the faint noises of a half-muted television playing in my ears. Sometimes I fall asleep only after crying for hours, exhausting myself enough to ignore the damp pillow of tears, snot and saliva. The best and worst part is that the one thing that I am, I truly am, is that I am completely impartial to whether I have a good life or a bad life, happy or sad, smiles or frowns, attractive or disgusting, nice or cruel.

Be me demonic or angelic, I am the dead Captain who watches from above as my plane continues to fly.