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ISSN: 1941-4137 |
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Volume Two Issue Two |
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Fear of Dying a Virgin It begins with girls wearing lipstick, bras, shaving legs, talking about things — boys' things — like they know, and worry collects like a small dark cloud because you've never been kissed. Then you learn to pluck eyebrows, wear perfume, try on skirts and cleavage, and girls who sounded like they knew, now can draw diagrams, instruct on how to use your tongue, and the little cloud turns like a planet because you may be the last virgin on earth. Eventually you have sex, get a job, rent your own apartment, relish sleeping naked, invite men to relish in your nakedness, and swap stories of such invites gone wrong with girlfriends over $2 bottles of wine, but those around you begin to marry, and you're made a bride's maid five times over. You don't bother with the old saying though because there are five different dresses of alternating purple-lavender-lilac to purchase, and it's just a wedding, and as far as you can tell anyone can have one. But what you can't have, what you refuse to give words to feels like a black hole forming. Then your best friend breaks up with her live-in boyfriend, and confides she keeps the art on the wall opposite her bed perfectly centered hoping it will inch her towards his side, and all you can think is how you've always taken up the middle. |
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