starting over every day

Claire, speaking in whispers. She tells me secrets of her life, her struggles. She says she was a happy child and a tormented young woman. She confesses to me that her life is to become someone she doesn’t know. She bursts into laughter and ends up crying. She asks me about blind love, uncertainty, the horror of knowing that everything ends. She admits to me that she smokes on the sly, that she uses lubricated objects to give herself pleasure, that she fantasizes about men gagged at her feet whom she watches while masturbating. She tells me that sometimes she feels the fatigue of starting over every day. Then she sees Lena and marvels at her brightness, her determination, her beauty. He tells me I’m lucky, asks me if I notice. I wake up in a daze.