BIKINI T-SHIRT

        It started as a joke and it was funny-haha, but it is no longer a joke. At some moment unbeknownst to you, it became a shield. In Medieval times, knights charged into battle with their family crest on their shields. In the postmodern era, you sally forth onto the beach protected by an image of a model’s 2D body. 
        Ironic, sure, because beneath the shirt’s flattened physique yours is anything but. Under the shirt’s silicone boob job and utterly fake ass with its tight, raised cheeks and immaculate line of emerald thong threading the needle, your actual skin hangs in flabs loosened by the seismic weight of five decades of gravity. 
        But it’s not about the irony, not anymore. Your bikini t-shirt is a truce. A compromise with the hunger of the beachgoers, whose ravenous eyes pour over more skin than the sun. You thought you could satisfy their hunger with a joke, a relic of carefree late-90’s humor. But they will never be full. 
        Still, you won’t give up on them. That’s why the aim became getting them, the beachgoers, to look past the impotent echo of irony into what lies beyond. 
        Your face reflects this. Not a smile or a smirk, but a pained stare. Practically a grimace. A pedantic but necessary reminder that you are trapped here, locked away in this two-dimensional plane by the beachgoers’ hunger. To see what lies beyond, they’ll have to see through their own reflection, to the other side of desire. Until then, you will be here, stretched out under your apotropaic cotton shirt, pretending to tan. 
        And what is it that lies beyond? The closest thing to an answer, for you, is the daily repetition of your trip to the beach, this endless, stripped-down search. 
        You were fit once. Your skin, taut and sleek. You looked, some years ago, not unlike the model screen-printed on your shirt. Back then, you felt the rays of the beachgoers’ eyes as warmth. You knew what they wanted, yet in a way—perhaps it was the way of youth—their lust was soothing. Maybe that’s why you kept coming back to the beach even after your abs went into hiding and wrinkles emerged to fill their sun-dried, leathery void. Why, after all these years, almost on autopilot, your uncovered legs continued to carry you to your sentry post on the same patch of sand each day, on the lookout for wandering eyes and something lost. 
        But it’s also more than that. Because, when you were young, you were selfish. Now, less so. Where once you harbored a total and immediate prioritization of yourself, you’ve grown a deep care for others, a constant, thumping, distracting concern. Now, you seek their eyes to put something in them, rather than extract. You are both more and less secure, for you know now that the thing you call “calm” is not an attribute but an awareness of the fleeting, cyclical nature of anxiety, each worry rising and cresting and breaking into stillness like the waves before you.
        Yes, this is why you come to the beach. To find calm. 
        Which is why what happens next is about to undo you. 
        It is one of the beachgoers. He spots you through his sunglasses and turns. His back is to the sea. His red swim trunks look boyish for a man of his age, and he is shirtless. His late-angle shadow reaches out to you like a long black carpet. He is not laughing. He is approaching. The sea breeze ripples the folds of your bikini t-shirt. There is no one behind you. Suddenly, the beach is empty, except for the two of you. The Beachgoer comes closer. There’s no mistaking his destination now. Over his left shoulder, the sun grazes the water with a splash of pink; his shadow leans into you. You hold a hand above your eyes as a visor, even though it’s dusk, and attempt a smile. You want it to seem ambiguous, safely muddled, but it comes out wrong: too uncanny. He doesn’t react. You peek into his eyes. They’re still, yet alive, like the ocean from afar, and they’re staring at your eyes. Your eyes! You want to stare back, but it’s too much. You think the Beachgoer sees right through your shirt, through your swimsuit, through your body, to the shaky scaffolding around your heart. Now, he hovers over you like a seagull. Another wave crashes. The saltwater smells refreshing and rancid. He opens his mouth to speak.
        You duck your head inside your shirt. There was nowhere else to hide. The waning rays of sunlight seep through the porous cotton, but the Beachgoer’s words do not. 


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