The Little Girl with the White Teddy Bears
An Asian girl with straight black hair, and uneven teeth, pressed her bare feet against my naked back. Her toes curled, flattened, straightened shifting no more than a hundred and five pounds in one spot. A hundred and five pounds cracking the wide expanse of my singular frame into separate pieces.
Outside a Mexican woman, sits at a low table, propped on the street corner while her small dirty faced daughter proudly waves down cars on Santa Monica boulevard to sell passing drivers flowers, white stuffed teddy bears, and heart shaped chocolates.
A candle lit dinner. . .
A gift packed into a small elegant box with a neat red bow tied around it. . .
A slow long kiss that leads to two warm bodies tangled together. . .
There are many ways to celebrate this over commercialized holiday, which does less to celebrate the bond between two lovers and more to emphasize the empty, lonely reality of those single beings without someone to share their life with.
The Asian leaves the room, places a cold wet washcloth into the microwave. Standing in the hallway, she watches it spin in circles, waiting for it to burn white with steam.
I make life harder then it needs to be. I take comfort in being alone. And yet, I hate being alone. But somewhere along the way, I’ve convinced myself that being alone gives me the time to continue to pretend that I’m a greater writer than I really am. And so, I live in this fantasy world, where only my dreams exist. Whole, complete, scathed only by my own doubts, fears, and struggling confidence. They answer only to me. They are my toys to pack, unpack, take out of the closet, and throw across the center of the floor and play with. They break only when I choose to break them, and don’t bend or adapt to meet someone else’s expectations of how our life should be.
So, now it’s just me, alone with an Asian girl with bad teeth, cleaning the slick film of baby oil from the shattered pieces that was once my back. And the mother still sits on the street corner, watching her proud little girl try to sell stuffed white teddy bears to strangers.
