The Cadaver Collection

Playboy

Funny how something is funny

until

you realize the smile you put up isn't real.

Funny how something is funny

until

you admit to yourself that you still can feel.

Funny how something is funny

until

they're not just pictures anymore.

I love my body, 

in general,

and I don't get magazines.

Guess I have no worries.

They said social media brings the pain,

so I wasn't on guard in a thrift shop

for those stacks in the basement

or the feeling of resentment.

They were fragile in my hands,

slowly decaying from a time when

nobody was hairless.

I thought I had learned to care less.

I should've turned away,

should've pulled him with me.

We were going skating down the street.

I had an excuse to leave.

Instead I knelt on that dirty carpet

and snatched his find from him.

I guess I just wasn't expecting her to be 

staring back at me.

Blonde curly hair,

average cup size.

Her hair was still there

so then the copy was older.

My body was better. 

I looked back at him and laughed.

She had nothing on me.

Just a body in a magazine.

Up a few years

and all the hair was gone.

Slight insecurity,

but old news for me.

I thought I'd be sad.

I was scared to see perfection.

But I liked me better,

so why was I hurt?

It was just paper. 

It was just paper and staples. 

I was real.

I had skin and blood and a heartbeat. 

What could paper do to me?

I could rip it in half

or crush it under my muddy shoes. 

I could throw it down and leave.

But it wasn't about me.

He was still standing above me,

one copy in hand

like it was nothing important

and it was, and it wasn't.

He's vowed he's a virgin

and he's waiting for me.

I believe that that's true,

but I forget his eyes aren't "Virgin Blue."

He's seen things

that they all have seen.

I took my top off just for him

but what picture beat me to it?

It's about him!

It's about how he thinks!

He's seen other girls.

They're all over the world.

So what if they're paper?

So what if I'm skin?

What makes me different?

My body isn't for rent.

He's paying full price

for what we found in the basement.

He says he can touch me,

but am I just another kind of "free?"

I memorized his eyes

when my bra came off.

But does the look in them count

holding this magazine now?

I don't envy them in that book.

I don't want a costume.

I'm happy without waxing

and I have just as good a body.

But I worry about him.

I worry about all the boys

that said I was their "first" anything.

Should I believe it's really me?

We left the magazines in the basement

and went to skate instead.

He held my hand and laughed with me

and I forgot to be unhappy.

But late at night

when he moves for my shirt

I can't help but wonder,

is it a coincidence that my room is in the basement?