Shooting Fish

+Down the gravel road grey stoned and kicking up dust in the gusts. Black sweatered hopping on to a bus a girl with almond hair and a look of tired defiance in her eyes. Eyes wide open and staring at you directly. She has been told she is beautiful for years. She accepts it as a given that she will never really feel it, even though she thinks it to be true. She knows men want her. She knows she looks as good as some of the girls in the magazines. But she hates the world for this. She hates the vanity that has crept inside of her. All of the things she wanted to be when she was younger have been wiped away by it. She is a commodity, a treasure to be acquired and worn on the outside of some man’s life. She is the BMW and leather couch. She is the walking proof of his bank account. She is no longer her name, no one talks about how smart she is and how she can do anything she puts her mind to. This is the best she can be according to the world. This is what they want, maybe the only thing they want. This body, this face, the unobtainable dream of men who struggle through college with only the thought of being with someone like her to keep them going. But it is only someone like her they want. One is as good as another. She is the prettiest girl on the bus. She is the prettiest girl in her economics class. But as the circles widen, her beauty lessens. The larger the net, the more plain she seems. She’s reading a women’s magazine.