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art:talon abraxas

Third Eye

2023 - PhFX

“Even angry she was beautiful”. Even tired. Even sick. Even one crazy night later. Even with two broken ribs. Even, even, even.

An eye hangs in front of me. Always watching. How silly for me to care about being pretty. But I care about being pretty.

Do men feel like this? Even alone sometimes I catch myself fixing, tidying. I cross windows no one can see in and I worry that someone will see in. I lock the bathroom door and have strange, unlikely thoughts about people who will sneak in and rip the curtain off the rod and see me naked. Sometimes, in the worst moments, I wonder: what if there’s a camera and people are seeing this ugliness.

My mother taught me to plan underwear in such a way that if they found your body you wouldn’t be embarrassed. It seems insane until you watch six seconds of television; where our dead bodies are almost always mostly naked, even beautiful in death. I worry I will die in an unflattering position.

“Who cares what they think?” I ask myself. I don’t even want the attention of men. Dressing for the attention of men on a daily basis is a dangerous thing and isn’t sustainable on the metro system. I want the attention of other women.

But I still look in the mirror and adjust things. I do this and don’t think about men. I wear makeup and it’s not for men. I sit pretty in traffic and it’s not for men. This eye, I guess. The “them”. It never blinks. Maybe I am the one who is watching.

The woman in the comic book has been kidnapped and tortured. We zoom in on her lips. Beautiful. Even then.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhHI6mTlTHv/?explore=true

by Matt Talbert

Saska Photographed by Jack Davison for Sixteen Journal Vol.I 

Cristina by Luca Fersko

(18+)