• tab I see that I am at the altar in a shimmering gown with a train so long the end is still in the aisle. In my hand, I hold a bouquet of perfectly formed red roses with silky petals that do not fall off. The diamond on my ring is so large that I can feel its weight, as heavy as I feel light, with pristine blond curls that smell like champagne cascading off my head, restrained by a delicate tiara. I am tall and gentle and my cheeks do not turn ruddy when I am nervous. My shoulders have the alluring curve I have always seen on the most beautiful celebrities in the magazines, the magazines I read when I want to pretend.
    tab I stand now in the drying grass of autumn, wearing jeans pulled over my waist and a shirt emblazoned with the image of a pouting Tinkerbell, swirling letters reading “Keep your attitude, I have my own”. A skunk is basking in the sunlight in the far corner of the yard, my cowardly old dog with arthritis in his knees too afraid to bark and scare it away. My child clings to the legs of my pants, diaper swollen, face covered in dirt. I hear the football game inside; I know my husband is watching it, I know there is beer.
    tab Facing me is a beautiful, tall man with tanned skin and smoldering brown eyes and wavy dark hair, dressed in a tuxedo with a rose pinned on the lapel to match my bouquet. He smiles with a mouthful of perfect white teeth, his nose is large, he looks exotic. He touches my slender neck with soft hands and marries me with a voice that rings in the cathedral like a bell and glides across my ears as silk. He pulls my face to his and our lips touch in a moment where the entire world subsides to colors and sounds that do not exist outside of his being. My face is the kind of beautiful you can feel.