How Do I See Myself? [by Molly Arden]

How do I see myself? Molly gets asked this a lot. She looks in the mirror and sees Picasso's understanding of her distorted self. In the chat room that served as her a senior seminar, she introduced the picture as “ravished mlf looks in the mirror after all-nighter.” She also wrote a poem, "Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror," revealing an affinity with the late John Ashbery. 

 

Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror

 

My mirror, I ask you, where have you been?
Proud of tits, mine or ours, we love, I miss.

Mirror made from eyes my beaux go

blind for closing them when we did kiss,

        when I did hiss, when you did piss
        but the battle between us (you cannot win

        that necklace of shards lost slapping your reflection)

        from toes to tips of tongue torn tights up for review

 

        she stands before the pier glass with rings and jewels
        and the poem on the pillow written with her lipstick
        is carried dactyl by furry dactyl to the waiting goddess in the mirror

       to swallow ah my ersters molly sighs I am a mess
       neither mess nor mass but the girl who was Miss
       Universe has gone down with the ship looking for Moby Dick.

 

      — Molly Arden