To my imaginary teenage boyfriend, love from a lesbian

Every night I look at me through your eyes.

That’s the way I’ve learned to do it, hiding from myself.

I’m me, but I’m Cameron Diaz, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Xena, making me your and my ultimate object of desire.

I imagine myself with inky hair, purple-black, wrapped around your throat – Scarlett and Rhett. I dreamed an equation, girl + boy = good, girl + girl = bad, being turned by simultaneous methods into girl + girl = good. Meanwhile, I tell myself I should really start imagining you, find something in you to lust after, something in myself to respond to your body, your eyes, the reality of you, and finding nothing, what a shock, fearful. Better go back to looking at me through your eyes.

Thank God for one more night for you.