I am not beautiful. I know this because a damson-faced man in a sad silver Mercedes (circa 1990) called me a fucking wee slag. Fucking wee slags are not beautiful. Especially when they’re the other side of fifty-five. Damson-faced men with concertina-slabbed bellies know a thing or two about beauty. They practically invented it. There they squat in the spill of an autumn morning, their foxy grey y-fronts cutting deep circumspect lines where their waists might have been. Damson-faced men drive with a psoriasis-spun elbow out of the smudged grease of a window that no longer shuts, not even close.
I am not beautiful. I know this because a tall beautiful man I lived with took it upon himself to grab me, to force me up against our kitchen bench, to push so hard my hand, of its own trembling accord, reached around behind me for a knife I knew I couldn’t use. This tall beautiful man had history. Her turquoise violation lingered for days in amongst crisp white sheets and reclaimed hardwood floorboards.
I am not beautiful. I know this because a shorter beautiful man with skin woven from chitins grew bored of our planned life together, ending it after a scramble of life decisions already made and briskly undone. Still, this shorter beautiful man continued to play me a bit-part, pulling my knee-strings, indispensable for walking, How those of us who are now ugly clamour for a nod or a touch from those who remain beautiful, refuting the adage that beauty is only skin deep, how can it be when they have everything and we have nothing?
I am not beautiful. I know this because I have a job in a building with a toilet mirror that pitches my lower lip, that punnets my cheeks, that reptants my neck (is that even a word?). Mirrors in shops are liars, we all know that. They groom us and swoon us, shaking us down into frocks we don’t need, careening heels that will murder us on escalators (manslaughter at least). But office mirrors? Are even they in the misogyny game now?
SANDERLINGS 