Aesthetic meanderings.

She sits in splendour on the city's edge
Face night smeared and hair like hedge
Then through the curtain there's a call
Put out that fag, I'm just appalled.
Luminescent nut brown maid
On Scottish Lowland central stage
Enters left and wraps around
The dirty urchin makes no sound.

Ugh, poetry's hopeless nowadays.

It's not what I really want to say, the rest of the stuff is, but then that never comes out quite right either. Should I just make a list? We'd be bad together because it would take so much to stop being secret, because you hate drugs and I like them, because you're the kind of person that can't stand discussion when she's made up her mind, because it would cause fuss in the one area I need to be clear and simple, because you don't feel this way about me at all and you'll never know, so why am I thinking like this?

Though I'd be kind to you, and you surprise me all the time by opening up and expanding yourself. You're secret and shy too. Maybe we'd have secrets together. I don't mind waiting for you to feel comfortable. We have similar opinions on things. We laugh. You're the most feasible obsession I've had, and the most longstanding probably... on-off for quite a while now, always unrequited. I will settle for friends, at the moment. Friends is a good place. I wouldn't ever want you to feel bored, or wishing you were somewhere else with someone else. I'll never proposition you for that reason, because I think you do like women, like me, but unlike me completely; you wouldn't want me at all. I'm too much everything. Then, you don't suspect me of wanting you- you don't think I'd like to be round you at all. Or at least, not in that way. You're so disillusioned. Too much wanting you, and you'd never believe the good things, only the bad, and all I want to tell you is the good truth about yourself. Everyone else only tells you bad things; not everyone. Family. I wouldn't want you to talk about that if you didn't want to. I know when to leave well alone.

I'd like to play you songs and say, this is what I think of you, and make you believe that that is my truth. What I believe to be the truth.

Sometimes, an optimistic little pirhana thought punctures the surface of common sense and whispers, 'what if she's doing the same thing? Totting up her daily calories in secret and wishing for you?'

I know she does the former. Another on the list of wonders. You calorie count quietly. There are women (I work with them) who shout about it. Weight classes and other things; there's one in particular, always remarking on how much weight she's lost. I would wait for people to point it out rather than forcing them to notice, it's my pet peeve. Especially as I practise food quibbling a fair bit, but have the decency to keep it quiet. I'd love to be a person who thought calories were boring, who knows that weight is trivial and who has bigger and better concerns than something so fluffy; and I try to effect that image. I do it fairly well, I think. Not many twig. I don't describe food as naughty, I don't engage in calorie chat, I don't pour scorn or praise on my own body. I just let it out here.

You don't talk about it. You don't eat in public (so you must think people are watching and judging. I did too, but then I realised people watch and judge more if you're not eating, whether you're fat or thin. If you're fat it's disdain, that fatty's not eating, poor them, dieting, or if you're thin it's well, she must be anorexic. I'd rather people thought I eat normally). The only inkling I caught was when you said, 'I'll eat that pizza, I know what's in it'. And I knew you'd been going to Weight club. That's a scam darling. If you want to lose weight, you can walk with me if you want and I'll tell you about what I do and not expect you to follow a word of it, because it's stupid, but I just want you to know there's another way, an infinite variety of ways. Please don't pay to stand and be weighed with a load of people with issues and be told what you're going to do. Make up your own mind- you're bright enough, and you hate people deciding for you.

If I could say anything about it to you, I'd say, just be happy with yourself. You're beautiful to me whether you gain weight or lose it, whether you're fat or thin. I want you to be happy as you are- and I want you to feel like you can be happy, whatever size you are. I mean, if you got so thin you started fainting all over the place, or so fat you couldn't walk, I'd be concerned, and it would be unattractive because I'd be more of a carer than a partner, but I'd know it wouldn't be my perogative to change you. Then again, I know from personal experience that someone telling me to be happy and that I was beautiful, even if it was the person I adored most, wouldn't be enough to stop me totting up the numbers every day, or thinking blow it if I've eaten over. It's what I think that's driving me. I still don't care how people think I look- though I do. I've got a fear of being classed as fat- because I equate fat and vulnerable, fat and teased- yet I don't equate it with you, I didn't know you were trying to lose weight till you said about the pizza. I hate pity the most, and I refuse to be pitied. So I want to be thin. I care that people perceive me as thin, but I don't care if I look ugly, or mean, or nasty. I know I'm not any of those things inside. Maybe I am, but I don't feel it. It's easy for people to make me feel teased or vulnerable.

Mum said a strange thing the other day; that the adolescents have probably got more respect for me because I'm pretty. I responded that I'm not really- and Dad chipped in that I probably was in comparison to the teaching staff. I don't really think I am- I'm younger, but a lot of the staff are really good looking. The good looking ones aren't necessarily best respected though. There's a woman who takes care of herself, who is fairly good looking and has got a hold on them really well, and another woman with a ridiculous surname who wears no makeup. She's not ugly, nowhere near, she's kind of middling- she could be pretty with effort, she's likely beautiful to her lover. She's certainly attractive. She was wearing this silly bow headband the first time I met her, trousers that were too tight- and the kids all had massive respect for her. She stormed round the room getting excited and making them think, and they were close to rapturous. And they liked her. She's the kind of person I want to be more like. Looks don't matter a jot in this game, it's on personality alone, and it's good to know that, if scary because I'm not sure my personality measures up, though I'd rather be judged on that than my face. It frustrates me that something so trivial should be considered a weapon- it's what makes me so hung up on the fat issue, and on food in general, the concept of others observing and judging and finding wanting (or excess). It's the thing that makes me put on makeup in the morning and think of my walks (which I really enjoy on their own merit) as little calorie burning excises, and it's the thing that makes all my food into numbers. It's good to be on a playing field that feels even, from where I'm standing. I suppose that this is what I would tell her, if I could tell her anything. Looks don't really count if you're amazing anyway, but they're a stick to beat you with if you're not brilliant. But, dear, you're an academic, you're bright and sparky and earnest and you stand straight for what you believe in, nothing else. Admirable. Noone really admires beautiful people on the sole merit of their beauty- everyone knows they're vacuous. The truly beautiful famed are the ones that have something behind their faces. I wouldn't swap my face, though I know it's not perfect and not half as beautiful as my sisters, because I like its quirks. I'd swap my body weight, but not its type, though it's large and mannish- but I like it, I like its practicality and movements. I'm getting closer to accepting, I think. I'd rather someone insulted me concerning the way my face is than called me a fluffy person. I don't care what you think of my face; I care about whether I'm effective or not. I'm proud of that. I'll get there with my body too one day. Then I'll be immune, and invulnerable.

I still think you're beautiful. Why do I want to say it if it's not important? I don't just mean corporeally, I mean everything. Beauty transcends. I mean, I don't describe people as beautiful often. I mean, you are my beautiful.

But if it's not important, couldn't I just as lovingly say, you are ugly? If you said that to me, in a loving tone, I would like it. I'd smile. I'd know you were complicit in what I think of the whole judging on looks world, I'd know you wouldn't care if I got old and grey and lost teeth and gained weight, I'd know...

Yet, I think you've heard ugly enough, in your short lifetime. I want you to hear beautiful, and accept ugly as well. Ugly can be beautiful.