Ellen

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I look at the bags beneath my eyes. I pretend that the lines across my face tell my story. I wasn't always this boring. It's my 40th birthday. I'm a far cry from the platinum blonde with perky tits who got married too young. I was barely 22 when I got pregnant with Conner. My poor body never recovered. By the time Ashley was born, it was all over. 

Look at my breasts— they've been filled and drained so many times— they look like a worn-out waistband on an old pair of sweatpants. My thighs haven't faired much better— the jiggle is real. I suck in my belly and try to hide the stretch marks with my hands, masking the proof that I created life so I can feel beautiful again. 

Mark hasn't looked at me in— god I can't even remember. 

The last time we had sex was a month ago, but I can't remember the last time, either one of us was present. He basically uses my vagina for masturbation— that is, if he's not working late or has the energy to get it up at all. He says it's not me, and that I'm as beautiful as the day we got married.

He's a good liar, and I'm okay with it.

The alternative is too catastrophic to think about— the nuclear option— what do you do when your husband no longer views you as a sexual being? 

Who are you, if not a partner to him?

At this point, who could blame him— my ass looks like a lunar landing site. 

I wish you could have seen me in college. I was so sexy. The prototypical southern belle. Polite and pretty. All the boys made their overtures. Still, I chose Mark because he made me laugh.

God, we had a hell of a time. 

We thought we were so fucking invincible. Now I break a little every time he walks into the room and doesn't acknowledge that I'm alive. I'm worse than ugly, I'm invisible. But if you ask him, we're fine. He's always so fucking fine with everything, and it kills me. 

He doesn't know that I slept with Jillian last week.

She awakened a side of me that I thought was dead and in the ground. It was like a rebirth. I'm not a lesbian, though. Hell, I don't even really have feelings for her.

It was just nice to be seen.


Top Photo by Artem Beliaikin courtesy of Unsplash 

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Top Photo by Artem Beliaikin courtesy of Unsplash 

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