18 January 2006 | Vol. 5, No. 4

Lost to Passion or Folly

by AMANDA BLACK

I woke up thinking there were beautiful people under the covers. I woke up thinking beauty had followed me home in the form of an economical soap. If only I could abandon myself to ruin. If only I could find some rhinestone-studded castle to storm, some handsome young man to bless me as a good woman. I should be blessed, a good woman such as I. Then I should be the good woodcutter, prancing around the room on all fours, swinging my axe with shouts of laughter and merriment. Someone might call me a lively kitty. Not a particle of me would be lost to passion or folly, not a particle of me would lapse to steadfast and gravely. If only I could find him alone in some corner, bent over his writing table, deeply engrossed in the arrangement of some important papers. I could climb the arch of his back, stretching my claws across the ridges of his spine. If only I could find him alone in the morning with his outrage, his beauty falling silent all the same.