DIVA

In my twentieth year, I am a diva in training. Black, faux velvet pumps strap the instep of each foot, fasten with bright silver buckles. Black Noir mascara lengthens, thickens, and darkens my lashes, casting a spider’s shadow across my powdered cheeks.

At night, in the garden outside a friend’s home, the smell of gardenias twines itself into my hair. A streetlamp filters light across my body, rendering me a canvas of chalk and ash.

Later at the club, after shots of gold-flecked liqueur, we are kissing. Michael kiss-kiss-kissing me. Then Michael is kissing Mario, who calls himself Maria, whose lips flame redder than my own.

In the centre of this room, a man takes a Brillo pad to his cock. Another, on the surface of the bar, folds his torso in half, almost takes himself into his own mouth. Dancing alone, I am surrounded by bodies gilded with sweat. Between the throbbing bass, between each pulse of the strobe, in this Dry Ice filled room, I am transparent as water.

Emerging from the club near dawn, we stand on Ocean Drive, the air humid and I in nothing but bra and jeans. At twenty, I think I will change the world with lace-edged black satin. A group of boys walks by, spewing, Puta, maricón. Inside us, a skein of light remains unbroken and we are dancing, trying to lift ourselves out of the body’s casing.