I quit my job. The noise in my head begins to quiet. I sleep for two weeks, then wake up and start another job.

I chop ten inches off my hair. No one notices. I dye it red.

I tell the hair dresser: "ORANGE red, not PURPLE red."

He dyes my hair purple red, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

"It looks nice," I tell him. "Thanks."

I tip him the exact socially acceptable amount.

My skin feels electric. I eat cookies for dinner. I feel sick.

I calculate my body fat percentage and find I am obese. I wear gold eyeliner and high heels on the weekends. The few extra inches thrusts me well past average height for both men and women.

People stare, or carefully don't.

I wonder if it's because I'm a big woman...or because I'm a big woman.

My old lover begins to lose interest. I can feel it, like sand on my skin. I cannot see it, but I know it's there.

I wonder if he's found someone else.

He probably has.

A friend from high school sends me a photo of myself from high school. The morning after prom. My hair is still twisted back like a Babylonian statue, my eyes are cocooned with smudged mascara, I am shrouded in my rainbow sweater. I am flipping the camera the finger. I am obviously hung over.

I am beautiful.

How did I not notice I was beautiful?

Adults always told me I was beautiful. Why didn't I believe them? Because I didn't look like the trend. My strong jaw and dimpled chin, my rumpled mouth like a hiccup. Dark slashes of eyebrows, before that was popular. I looked like a pre-raphaelite painting.

Do I still look like that?

I run a bath, so hot it scalds my skin. I sit in it, curled, until my body gets used to the scorching temperature.

A stiff gin in room temperature soda water.

I lean back, and the bottom joint of my spine pops.

I wash my hair and watch an episode of the Handmaid's Tale.

It pulls me somewhere dark. I curl into the fetal position in bed as I watch the end.

I occurs to me, a sudden and terrible realization, that I have never had a romantic partner tell me they love me.

That can't be possible.

I run through the first few.

No, no.

I run through the long time lovers, the friends with benefits.

Nothing. None of them.

I feel their hands on my body. I feel their breath, still.

I roll to the wall and close my computer.

How, how.

I feel like I wear my despair like a fur coat, and everyone can see my shame.

I feel sick.

.

Rosie

Before&After