Acts of Desperation

by Megan Nolan

I hate now for men to dote in this way, the ones who don’t know me. Their praise lands uncertainly in the air somewhere between the two of us, because it doesn’t belong to me. I hate to hear them tell me what I am, even or especially when what they think I am is kind or brilliant or beautiful. I hate when they insist that I have no faults, that my laziness or violence or cruelty simply don’t exist. When they speak this way I am even less in my body than usual, feeling the sickness of a stranger look me in the eye and describe what is not there. What I am feeling is their disregard for my reality. I am being made to wear whatever particular fantasy they wish to project. Each time it happens I have to restrain myself from screaming in their faces to prove I am not what they believe me to be. In these moments I am happy with my ugliness and want them to see it. Whatever badness I am I want to be it, to be as much like whatever my self is as possible; as far from the stranger’s projection as possible.