on a lighter note

I really, really like people.

Lately I have just seen attractive people everywhere, and it’s lovely. Right now I find just about every possible type of person gorgeous, which is nice, because there’s always someone pretty to look at. I just wish I could flirt with them all, or touch their curly hair or freckled skin or poky bones.

The other day we were in the car and a college-type boy meandered across the street in front of us and we just stared (or was that only me?). He was softly scruffy, pale and thin, a little bit slouchy, dressed in gray and brown. He would have looked drab or dark but in his hand he carried a little blue bowl of bright, creamy-yellow gelato. He ate it playfully, looking like an outsized child or silly puppy with that tiny spatula-spoon, because those spatulas make everyone look silly. He was gorgeous.

Commercials on TV are filled with beautiful people, so perfect they almost make my eyes hurt but I can’t look away. They don’t make me want to buy things, just to stare at their faces and bodies forever and reach for them as if they’re real. I want to touch the woman in the black patent leather leggings and the teenage boy in the SUV and the hair of the woman selling shampoo. I want to see if they smell as good as they look, bite into them like fruit and see if they taste sweet or sour, ripe or bitter.

Also my friends that I’ve seen this past week or so are just ridiculously good-looking in their ways, being either thin and pale with tiny, fragile fairy-curves, or having long lanky tan limbs that extend bonily for what seems like forever. With guitars in their arms, or bodies wrapped around pillows, they are delightful. One has these big lips and her body is just all muscles and she is always warm to the touch. I don’t want them, I just adore seeing them. They’re so interesting and they make me so happy.

Some people I haven’t seen in too long to define the ways they’re beautiful, and others won’t listen, so I won’t try. But really I don’t think I know ugly people. It’s trite and disgusting, but true. Maybe knowing them makes them not ugly to me. I know there are ugly strangers. And actually, I take that back. I do know ugly people. I know people who aren’t beautiful. But I like to look at them anyway, because they are still eye candy for me, just different flavors.