each morning i go online & look at pictures of pretty girls in new york city. the girls wrap their necks in long scarves of red and blue. They encase their thin, beautiful bodies in marshmallow-soft puffer jackets of matte-black and navy and cream. They stand in their cluttered apartments and take pics of themselves wearing stonewashed baggy jeans and self-made crop tops that show off their flat stomachs. they dance to an indie rock song or strike an acrobatic yoga pose or clutch the end of an outstretched leg like a bohemian ballerina.

each day i look at these pictures for many hours & i adore & despise them. i spend the entire morning drafting socially appropriate messages of introduction to the girls, but the words trot out like a dog with a chain around its neck & i never find the courage to press send. i am terrified of what the girls will think of me. of what they will say to their friends about me. and what they will post about me on social media. their opinions are the only ones in the world i care about.

for decades, loneliness & desire weakened my skull like groundwater dissolving subterranean limestone. the grecian beauty of the girls’ bodies & the shimmering color of their eyes makes my brain buzz. i love all beautiful things. i wish i could say this out loud without judgement. i wish to graze my fingertips along the soft skin of the girls’ bare hips & listen to the contented humming of their voices. i wish to splay beside them in bed like a maine coon & wake up in the morning with their soft hair splashed across my bare chest. i wish to step into the hidden worlds inside their minds & show them that i exist.