My pleasures are vicarious. Sifting the grit of casual conversation. Spitting it back. I extract sensual highs from talking about other people. Dirt is cocaine, but vicarity is subtler and more palatable. It's a vocal medium, kept alive by sound waves, reverberations, sometimes fired through telephone lines, sometimes scattered like buckshot into the wireless realm, inevitably suspended in the brain only as long as we can keep the word flow. The spotlight is fueled by silence, and I look awful without shadows. Every night I spend alone the spotlight burns another freckle onto the bridge of my nose. So I shield myself with a barrage, sometimes steady, sometimes spotty. But it takes its toll. The masochism of third person compliments and the sadism of second person: She's got a body to die for--twiggy leggy cute ass. I'd give my left breast. God, I wish I had your hips. Oh, my breasts? Take them, I won't miss them.
The body, always the body. My obsession. A sex-imbued curse. Undesired birthright. I soothe my self-image with incantations, redirection, speech act body theft. Keep the spotlight on everyone but myself. My compliments are subtle poisons for all parties involved. That girl over there, the twenty-something in the hip huggers? I can't have her perfect belly or ass, but I can absorb it into myself, purchase satisfaction with the contrast. That woman over there pushing the baby stroller has love handles and saggy breasts, but I'll envy her striated legs. Each dress size between us is a credit to my name. God's negative balance. Pre-emptive absolution. I purchase my bad deeds, my jealousy, my spite, my greed, my lust, my hate with the pieces of my ego that I sell everyday, legs crossed, coffee steam or gin buzz. Ultimately It's just tokens. Medals I'll flaunt in hell where I'll be a high class call girl for the degenerates of heaven. I won't make eye contact with the fallen, the tight bodies who drove German SUVs and never got speeding tickets. They'll be wearing sweaty g-strings, bending over for demons, volcano fire spreading through their nether regions.
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