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the observant ascetic
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above the silver prints of bodyscapes made surreal by their reflection beneath the surface of a body of water
(as if on the other side of a mirror)
they walked in silence side by side, in a loose erratic orbit around each other
above one framed work was a quote painted neatly on the wall above it
"There is no such perfect beauty that hath not some strangeness to it"
--Sir Francis Bacon
this, he thought, i should tell her this. This could be the answer to her insistence that she was not beautiful. it perplexed him that she could not see it.
it was not the conventional beauty that adorned the garish advertisments on TV or the billboards, but something more pure in its appeal. soething that didn't need to be painted on
she could sense the earnestness of his affection for her but could not find a reason to justify it in her own mind. it frightened her, it threatened to overwhelm her
in her, he recognized someone traveling many of the same roads he had once known before experience and repeptition had their chance to cause deeper harm - as it had done him
because he loved her, he wanted to deluge her with affection, because he was damaged, he sought validation through her approval
it was too much for her, she felt trapped by the situation.
she feared one one hand that if she denied him what it seemed he was after, he would be disappointed and hurt by the seeming rejection - on the other hand, she feared that if she did commit to him, he would grow tired of her and all of the things about herself she disliked (not knowing that he harbored the same fear about her growing weary of him in the same fashion)
the harder he tried to reach out to her, the more she shied away from him in a perpetual circle of events
weeks later, he sat in the dark looking for the right words, but was less than sure that there were any and wondered if he would have the courage to say them
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