By Anaiis Rios-Kasoga ’25
Editor-in-Chief
Life steams up from under the streets rising in thick tendrils between grates along the sidewalk. Through the haze, I can just make out the shapeless faces of the mass that pushes against my body. They’re not real people. When I walk up 14th I’m supposed to pretend there is nobody else who belongs to this world. Just me, the wires hanging from my ears, and the stares of men whose hunger has mingled with the fumes. Threatening to pull me down under the metal. Where it’s cozy enough to taste me and spit me out.
Their eyes drift from my lips to my chest, the curve of my hips down the length of my legs. Eventually, they make it back up to meet my eyes. But I’m not looking. My gaze is locked on the sea of movement. The depersonalized blobs—that one looks like my old neighbor. I focus on the shape until it’s out of sight. A deep breath in and hold because maybe the eyes will travel over me. They will find my outline boring and set their stare on another. If I turn the music up and surrender to permanent ear damage I won’t hear what they have to say.
If they even say anything at all— I’m not even looking my best today. Maybe I’m just full of myself, I mean they’re giving out compliments right? Their words are harmless and they’re deserved. This is what they tell themselves, what they tell me and I almost believe them. Really, what I’m in danger of receiving is not a compliment at all. It’s an oral jerk-off to an inanimate object. One that is not contingent on what I’m wearing or if I am feeling bloated that day but is entirely about existence and proximity.
My father says that they will look because I’m beautiful. My mother says it’s my energy, what I put into the world. Grandfather says that it’s a lingering habit from their adolescence. Grandmother says it’s my megawatt smile.
I’m supposed to feel special that their eyes would so willingly devour my body. Eyes that look simply because they can. It does not matter what I want, the stone face I put on, the layers of clothing I hide under. It is a law of my being, as long as I exist the way I do they will look upon me. It does not matter that I do not want the attention; that it is not a compliment.
I’m desperate for the chance to take on a second skin. To exist outside these confines. To stretch into a larger broader fuller body that is not so easily consumed. To fill up the space between us. To force their eyes to lower. To smile of my own accord as I look them up and down.
Because really, what’s the harm in looking?
