The Mirror The lights slipping through the half closed blinds illuminated my body, playing over my skin in an almost sensual way. Not to me obviously, but I would like to think that it would be to someone else. Perhaps not the woman in the bed and bedroom that I just left, but to someone out there in the cold city. Someone lying alone, I like to think, in my naive arrogance. I know of it, that naive arrogance, so I'm allowed to at least think it out loud, if there is such a thing. I cross the small living room, more remembering than seeing the worn out and slightly stained leather couch and the sideboard with the huge flower that I think will be dead in a week or so. Something about it makes me think it is a recent purchase from a supermarket or something similiar, and that usually means one of two things: Either the owner doesn't care for plants and need to buy new ones frequently, or it is just recently bought and doomed from the beginning. Of course I could be completely wrong, in which case the flower will live a long and happy #life, and I couldn't care less. The woman then, or girl really. College, pretty but far from exceptional, probably bright in her field of expertise, which I think was some sort of theology focusing on the Middle East, but that's about it. She fucked me, that says something I like to think. Although it is not a positive thought, more of a self-berating thing where I remember that I don't keep in shape and shit like that. I don't think nor care much about that, nor my host who are sleeping rather soundly in her bed. The stuffed animals in the bedroom freak me out a bit, until I remember they are dead things and not a sign of innocence. It was good enough, I won't call and she won't care. We are animals. I'm not sure if that turns me on or makes me sick. I don't love myself. The bathroom mirror stares back at me, bearing a strange resamblance. Only fatter, I need to exercise and my stomach betrays my fondness of beer all too well, and I need to shape up when it comes to my diet. I know this, I care about it, just not enough. I know I should, but for some reason I'm not capable of it. The hair should have a solid color, not this pseudo-brown thing that a third of the world's population carries without any pride. My arms should be beefier, because although I'm by no means weak I look like a dork who can't lift, well, anything particularly heavy. That one has its advantages though, I rarely have to help anyone move. Then again, I won't get tipped for my arms when serving at a restaurant. Not that I work with that, but anyway - the knowledge is there. The only thing I've got is my smile and my brains. The former works on the mothers of the bitches I'd like to fuck, the latter on no one. I'm bitter and brutal, a bastard. I think I'm pleased with that. Allt that is a long way from the thinly built yet beer-bellied person in the mirror. That guy has poor posture, needs a haircut, looks haggard and worn out. Perhaps that isn't too surprising, it has been a long evening and night, and a hard #life full of disappointment, pain, and the ever present search for happiness. But still, the visage is not pretty, impressive, or even sexy. It does not inspire confidence or need, lust nor greed. But it is there, bleak and harsh, a snapshot of reality. I make it eternal with my mobile phone. "Smile you douche," I say to my phone, and return to bed.
