Desolate

I gazed down at her. She was perfect in her tender flesh, in her strength. Why was it not enough for her? She was beyond beautiful in her wild and weird way. Why would she want to be taken in any other manner, then with her fragile limbs tangled into mine? Staring at me with those glimmering eyes as she dies? She was almost too real.

I reached down and pulled off the wig. Her head slipped to one side and I saw the tangle of thorny vines twisting around her ear. Why was appearance so important to her? I pictured her sitting before the mirror, brushing her false hair, smiling. Preparing herself. Imagining herself. To look like her dream.

Was that it? Beyond the sharing of blood, beyond the offering of flesh and passion? What was this power in the image of self? I tried to remember being human. Was the conception of self so powerful to me then? Have I forgotten as I become a changeless thing of eternal instinct? I turned to the mirror, and saw nothing.