  "He left behind a Hole in the Universe through which darkness poured like liquid tar. " - urlLink Arundhati Roy , The God of Small Things I am just a girl...really. Though I play at being a woman most everyday--well, the days where being a woman isn't too difficult, too risky, or too meaningful. Like this one. On the other side of my bedroom window, there is water falling from the sky. Quite magical, quite calming, perfectly divine. And I want to go out in it. I want to be absolutely free in it. Free as I never have been. Reckless, and the woman I am bitterly ingests this fact each time this miracle occurs, as I never will be.
Irresponsible as a girl can, sometimes, be. Uncouth and open as the unencumbered animal there was never any possibility of me becoming. Why... There will always be someone watching me, someone to hide from. A man, who will eat me with his eyes as I danced there, naked, because my body in that state means different things to him--for him, he thinks--than it does to me--yet never just for me, I know. And I am uncomfortable with this play, this dance of my imagination. And not for any reason that I think will be immediately apparent. Because the man of my imagination, imposing himself on my own private dance betwixt myself and Wonder, is no stranger to me. He is the man--whichever man may come--whose loving I can no longer resist, wage war against...protest until I am in full tears and out of all breath.
He that I enfold a piece of my heart in a napkin and pass it to...which he will take great care of...or lose track of...or toss aside all together, as is his wont. Nothing at all for me to do about it, because women give their hearts freely, right? I don't know. Since, as I have just written, I am just a girl. And mine has been stolen from me. Quite a masterful little thief, a man can be, when your heart is his pilfery.
Sneak right up to your face, their palms up and always in view, and kiss you completely devoid of force, yet somehow backing you into a corner where going through him is the only way you can see light again. A corner, by the way, that you aren't even certain you want to leave, now that you have got yourself pushed in there. How can I love a trap...that leaves me blind...and helpless...without protection he doesn't give. And how can I want more, my God, the yearning is the worst. A deep, deeper, run-right-through-me sort of ache only a lover can cure...again, as is his wont. And I'm smart, so imagined--rather hardly, rather concretely--I was immune. But because he decided to place me on a pedestal, and then loved me before he ever even kissed me, ever even held me close to him, it is my task to maintain some sort of balance so that I fall off later rather than sooner. Because I certainly will fall. And he certainly will no longer be interested in catching me. And I'll have to burst into flames--for cleansing's sake--to get ready for the next time it happens all over again.
Because now that I know this goodness, how can I not risk certain danger to have more of it when I lose this present bit. A woman's business, wading through these waters. Because a girl can still pretend and play. Pretend that a decision doesn't have to be made, play by blowing kisses through air never having to press them to pulsing flesh. With sweetness and threat as I have never experienced at once, a man has made me blink him into reality, where now my turn is serious because his last was as serious as I can conceive at this stage–like in a novel–and I don’t know how the page turns. Though I absolutely know how this ends–and it will–because all of human history won’t just skip around me. I, too, will get bowled over–as so many have done before..as I myself will be again, after. No more play, though I can’t get away from the fact that I didn’t sign up for this–was looking for entertainment, I swear.
But this is my life, and I’m desperately afraid to go on and just live it. If it were all right with the universe, were it my choice, I think I’d like to have stopped things at yesterday–and have all days, forever, be just like that one. Where I wasn’t forced to grow up...forced to contend with...forced to face squarely. I am the best coward I know. 
