Written: in college, with a few edits in present day – it’s been really fun to look back on the writer I once was
Powered by: a morning run
Inspired by: I think I originally wrote this about an influencer couple I followed on Instagram
On a beach manufactured to look like paradise, he waits for someone to watch before he licks the sand and saltwater from her hip bone. Squinting down at the sun glaring off her skin he says This is how you taste, and kisses her again. This is how everything should taste. She bites down on his bottom lip shriveled from sunburn and saltwater, and somewhere they can hear the synthetic snapping of a picture being taken.
She demands fluffy white sheets because of how it look against her, how it softens the harshness of her bony neck and ribs and knees in the photos they post. The cleaning lady is beginning to complain. They never keep the window shut, letting out the air conditioning and letting in the bugs. They smirk as she insists that they follow corporate policy, explain to her that they are like flowers, they need sunlight. Grow up, she mutters as she pushes her cart down the hallway. Die, he screams back.
They are so young, everywhere they go people look for their parents. Sometimes they give the truth, sometimes they live in lies. I’m conducting fieldwork for my senior thesis in cultural anthropology, she says somberly, dripping pool water onto the marble floors. I’m here for a photo shoot with Surfer Magazine, he reminds the bartender who questions his ID.
And anytime their world can’t be crafted to meet their satisfaction, no edit or filter or highlight reel can make things seem good enough, she will ask for something new, gazing up with her baby monkey eyes while he pushes the curls from his face and they feel they can everything anyone has ever wanted.