Angelica

“Keep love in your heart,” my mother used to say, “And it will always be returned.” She loved her audience, but they forgot her with the next exquisite performer. And she loved her men, but they only knew how to devour. And she loved me, but I grew increasingly to despise her. I could see she no longer did it for the money but out of desperation. She did it just to know that she could be felt. Just to know that she could be seen and had not yet dissolved into the sweat and smoke of the ugly air.