Ekphrastic 5

"I detest the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women," he admits to the alabaster in his arms, his upper lip peeling as he traces her clavicle with his bared teeth. "But you, my ivory girl, will be perfect."

woman (noun)

plural - women

1a: an adult female person

b: a woman belonging to a particular category

He brings her gifts. Fresh flowers, so sweet that they would singe her nostrils if she could smell. Beads whose beauty would blind her if she could see. Seashells that he stole from the shore, fashioned into a necklace that would scrape at her stone skin when he clasps it at the nape of her neck if she could feel. And clothes that he crafted himself. Coquelicot over ultramarine, just like his robes.

girl (noun)

plural - girls

1a (1): a female child from birth to adulthood

She would rather he grow flowers instead of slaughtering them, so her locks will always be adorned. What would it be like to breathe life into glass, so they become beads? What would it be like to sprint along the shore, the wind billowing under her chiton - a chiton she's colored herself? Though she her eyes do not see, her nose does not smell, her hands do not feel, and her tongue does not taste his when it tangles around hers, she senses that he would not let her.

my (adjective)

1: of relating to me or myself especially as

possessor

Aphrodite, please, do not let me live. Goddess forbid I, his ivory girl, become a girl, and that girl become a woman with faults beyond measure with which nature has gifted her, a woman who he will despise more than those faults.

Galatea (mythology)

1: she who is milk-white

Aphrodite, please, do not let me live.

Or let me live.

It makes no difference to him, least of all to me

I will still be

a statue