“Take your clothes off!”

“Pardon?”

“Well,” she said while we just agreed to make out, “I am not sure if you are man man.” 

“Like Kendrick Lamar?” 

“Not Man-Man, like…real man.” Uh oh, I thought to myself, does this woman want to confirm my sexuality or sex. Yeah, “Okay!” and I took my clothes off:

She said I am too pretty, too collected to be a man. She said I have a smile only lesbians would have. Fair. I had been busy taking care of myself those years. Fair. I have a set of perfect teeth that everybody can love. I look at her eyes and see my bone-cutting jaw in her irises. We made love with my reflection and her projection of me.

“Well, it was something,” she whispered at 2:00 AM, exhausted, “Shall we do it again?”

I saw my younger self. Not much by, since it only had been three years prior and almost twenty kilograms heavier. I saw myself getting railed on a mat—because my room had no bed. In the heat of things, she said something like how I am worth more than I felt, how I have such a way with words, and how I have such a youthful appearance I might as well pass as a high schooler. 

I saw myself in her flattery; I felt her words churn in my stomach as butterflies. She traded compliments with my bullshit, complementing my patience with her bullshit; both only saw flags because we looked cute in rose-colored glasses.

She then left abruptly, messily. She couldn’t contain herself, nor could I be collected about it. Whatever, “never need a bitch, I am what a bitch need,” —like the song lyrics, all those reflections make me only see myself superficially and accept my apparent heartlessness.

I spent a few months wallowing and pampering myself. Swiping right and left, trying to find comfort in company. I found her then. She has such a smile but a tough boulder to break. I found her stoicism and she found my cynicism amusing. Apparently, under all that solid carelessness, I found her really caring nature. I found “she (who) never need a man, she (is) what a man need.”

She put me on a pedestal, and I clearly saw her projection of me. I stroked my chin in front of her projection and saw my glorious reflection on it. She continued to do so until her carelessness brought forth calamity. It was off-putting, and this time,

I decided to leave. I found myself on my therapist’s couch, talking about regret and how I ended up losing people left and right. I found myself at the dinner table, at cafes, in bed with a few others. I became an omen, a trial, in which I saw projections that were all kinds of blurry. Sometimes, it had flare, sometimes, it’s in grayscale. I found myself left confused. Do I need a she? Should I try a he?

I walked to a bar in town amidst my confusion. All thought about her and how I perceive myself. I saw myself and a bouncer on a pavement puddle in front of the bar. After I said ‘I’ more than a forty times, I told the bouncer a hilarious joke, “a narcissist walks into a bar…”