Saturday, March 03, 2007

On Beauty, Desire, and The Effects of Time

He has large vibrant green eyes. He is tall with broad shoulders and olive skin. Curly hair tumbles off his head, seeming as if it might fall to the grown but floats magically framing his face. Two days of stubble highlights his strong jaw line (I wonder what he looks like when shaven...). His clothes both hide and hint at his lean muscled frame underneath. Though seeming effortless, his muscled frame, that of Adonis of Greek myth, is a product of hours at the gym.
He is 21 or 22... all I know is that he is younger than I.
He is young. He is beautiful. He will get older.
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"Do I attract you? Do I repluse you? With my queasy smile.
Am I too flirty? Am I too dirty? Do you like what I like?
I can be wholesome, I can be loathsome, I'm just a little bit shy.
Why don't you like me? Why don't you like me without making me try?"
-from Grace Kelly by Mika
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"Beauty fades", he tells me.
I look at him. He is beautiful.
"Beauty does not fade. Beauty changes." I reply.
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I have a crush on Mika.
He is a British pop star. I have never met him. I am obsessively in love with his music.
I think he is beautiful.
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The body is inescapable: it is necessary for existence. We are our bodies. Yet to rise above that superficiality of surfaces that permeates dominant cultural idea(ls) of love, the body must mean nothing. What matters is not their eyes, teeth, biceps, fingers, breasts, or cock but who they are.
Lest we forget that they would not be "who they are" without the body we so desperately try,
but fail, to ignore.
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"Now take a look at a boy like me.
Who's never stood on his own two feet.
Now I'm blue as I can be.
Love come and got me down"
- from Lollipop by Mika
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The world changes. People change. What people want changes.
We are slaves to the fear of change. We would rather that things stay the same, for fear that instead of getting better that they will get worse.
Though beauty does change, and desire may fail us, beauty is never lost.
Beauty changes, but never fades away.
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With time his perfect olive skin will show natural signs of aging. The curly hair that tumbles from his head may fall out and thin. His shoulders will droop from the pressure of years. To say that he will shrink would be inaccurate, but he will not seem as attractively tall. He may not find the time to continue going to the gym five times a week and his leaned muscled frame will become a memory for fantasies.
Yes, he will change over time.
Those who found his boyish youth attractive will move onto a new generation of young men to fawn over. New men will fall for his more handsome manly features. There will be those who do not find him attractive until they have known him for an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade. There will be those, blinded by his ever changing physical body, find him unattractive after knowing him for an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade.
This is life. Tick tock tick tock. Time happens.
Yes, he will change over time.
But his large vibrant green eyes will be the same forever.