Like Me

by Hayley Phelan

For all that talk about selling one’s soul, no one seems to be in the market. It’s the body that everybody wants. The body is a currency everyone can understand.

the fact remains: people see many things in my face, but what they never seem to see is me.

That’s what I thought love was: someone who constantly wanted to take your picture.

That’s the thing about money. It insulates you from certain truths. If ignorance is bliss, then it’s also the greatest luxury money can buy.

It was the kind of thing brands had started posting recently, as if they were moral entities instead of capitalist enterprises, as if they had values beyond customer retention and profit margin.

As people began to think of themselves more and more as brands, brands started to feel more and more like people.

I realized then that everybody was pretending, all the time, but that for most people, for the people we call “normal,” the pretending part eventually falls away and the act simply becomes their life.