Aesthetica

by Allie Rowbottom

“Is there anything more timeless than two girls doing blow in a bathroom stall?”

loved her for, followed and paid her for. It was only when she wanted to be smart, useful, that we wondered if she could.

but today there’s a sort of contentment to invisibility, even if I suspect it won’t last. I suspect I’ll recover, return, and sometimes the wanting will, too: to be beautiful, to be seen, to be loved and never left. Desire like that isn’t a failure, or a girlhood flight of fancy. It’s a fact of every life.

stupid to have forgotten he’s aged, too, gone invisible in his own way.

Every mirror is an illusion. The only one I want is the one my mother offered, a vision of myself through her eyes.

It’s up to me to look upon myself the way I imagine she would: with love. Maybe that’s the wisest approach to the life left for me to

Not my child. But if she was, I would tell her to hold fast to her wand, her power.