The Idea of Beauty.

She walks past, and the slim, sleek lines of her body in a falsely modest plain black tank top captures every single rod and cone in your eye's retina. As she reaches for the second highest shelf in one of the supermarket's mosaic aisles, you cannot help but notice perfection as it stretches. She turns, and the lines that mark her face are not pretentious, but your breathing suddenly stops and your vocal folds medialise as you piece her face in your mind, a thousand memories racing- and beauty registers. Is that true beauty? Is that beauty at all?

There is another. She whose lines curve and sag, no longer taut. She whose eyes have lost their glisten. She who registers pain, hurt, longing, sorrow. But she tries. She admits fault. She shows flaws. She fails, but picks herself up to try again. She is the epitome of imperfection, as we all are. Is she, too, beautiful? Where is the attraction in perfection? Perfection is attractive.. until one meets imperfection. Is that, too, not attractive, if not more? What would the world be like- uninteresting, but perfect? What's not to want, in this imperfect world? You want morality? You can strive for that. You want decadence? You can have that too. Human choice is a huge priveledge- the race for perfection is futile but fascinating.

And truly, cliched. It is true? It is not? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I hope that when you look in the mirror, that beholder will be you.