Fifteen Dollar Sandwiches

It wasn't the money I wanted--

It was a fifteen-dollar sandwich, and a turned down collar and bedding with blue linen and some passing girl's shoes (as if I would ever wear heels like that!). It was Barcelona--it was Anywhere--and laughter echoing off a foreign pool (I didn't need to own the pool, just to know the ones who did, see). Not the money, no.

It wasn't he adoration I wanted, either--it was the song. I wanted the music; I did. I wanted to tell the truth to the masses (but applause is music, too, yes? It's just that I'm a natural with rhythm, see; it's in the blood). The instrument, I loved the instrument; I loved having chords in my own throat.

It wasn't readership, but the turn of (my own) punctuation that I needed to work out and work up and work on. I only wanted to be useful, to say it as it hadn't been said (where would the world be without writers?). I was willing to listen, too (with my mouth open, yes, but only to save time)(it's called dialogue). And I wasn't in love with the sound of my own typing fingers--(well, my laptop's new and very quiet).

The world needs writers; it needs beauty too. Is it vanity to love beauty and seek to embody it on occasion? (every occasion? please) Realism demands that I recognize what women are for--shall I cast off my role, my femina? It was the curve of my own leg I wanted (lust? please). The work was necessary, the failure was only for overcoming. Shall I not do what must be done for the sake of a waist, a face? I am only a woman; I don't put on airs. I know what we are for.

Now the dresses, it's true; I wanted those. The body for the dress, the dress for the body, the lipstick for Ava Gardner, (the world needs its Ava Gardners). For other women. Perhaps for men, too; yes, a little bit for men. (I suppose could blithely maintain that it was only for me, except I never shaved in the winter or dressed on Saturdays; sort of makes colander of my theory)... no! It wasn't vanity; I only wanted my Me to be worthy, contribute to he cause of Beauty.

I didn't want to be petted (to be protected from seeing myself? please); I wanted to be loved. I wanted him, let it be known. Is it selfishness, to love someone thoroughly? Is it selfish, to take what he offers and give what he wants? I was losing self, not worshiping it; did I ever say anything but that I loved him? I said it; you could have heard me if you'd been there and we hadn't been always hiding from the world, I said it all the time. "You make me feel like I have come home," I said. I meant I love you. "I can't imagine a future without you in it," he said. He meant I love you, too.

This is love.

I would have stayed, too. If my face had not begun to age, if he had been better with punctuation. And if there had been fifteen dollar sandwiches.