Do you see me?

“I guess if you can’t see me, looks aren’t really a huge deal,” I say like it doesn’t matter … but maybe it does, maybe I need you to see me. You can hear the shuffling of soft fabric as I move, the tap of a mug on the table top. There’s a pause and you wonder if maybe I’m considering what to say next — or maybe, I’m just tired.

I take a breath, slow and deliberate. You almost suspect that I’m taking a drag from a cigarette – I’m not, it’s a filthy habit. I’ve got enough vices without adding that one.

More shuffling – a whisper of denim, the soft shrug of cotton. “But you must be interested or you wouldn’t have asked,” I acknowledge and you wonder if maybe I leaned closer as I spoke. You can smell coffee in the air and the calendula from the moisturizer on my skin.

“Maybe I’m a little strange?” A laugh. “No, not strange really – I’m just a girl who’s lived long enough to have worn a few different faces.”

The mug taps against the table again, more gently this time, and you can hear my breathing. Steady in the darkness.

“I like to decorate this body with eyeliner and black nail polish,” I say softly, you can hear a candle flame flicker, a gentle drip of wax. “The lipstick always has to look like blood, when I wear it.”

My breath catches.

“I like to be seen.”

You can feel a hand atop your hand now. Cold. As if the bones beneath the softness of the skin are made of ice – and you shiver, without meaning to.

But you don’t pull away.

I draw your palm to my cheek and you can feel the brush of curls against your curious fingertips. There’s a scent but it isn’t intense – just clean.

The silence stretches into the shadows and it’s almost comfortable now – inviting.

“Do you see me?”