The Human Body As Currency

Looking for love in all the wrong places.

Gina Lumsden-Kropf
Modern Women
Published in
2 min readSep 11, 2023

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Original photo copyright Gina Lumsden Kropf

Naked, she entered into the concrete world of icy steel doors where they placed their hearts safely behind a combination lock.

Turn right to 14, left to 12? She couldn’t remember.

Happy faces all around, laughter, through a tin can and a piece of string.

Her skin ached, and each glare in her direction felt like piercing holes in her flesh. Raw with emotion, trying to process the harshness of events happening around her, she wondered how others seemed so carefree and light,

like clouds in the blue sky, forming shapes and vanishing.

The dance.

Adults lived in the peripheral, loud and confusing, stopping only to make a comment “she has a body that just wont quit”. “Wow, she is beautiful, but she better stop eating those fries before she gains weight”,

then off they would go, as though lost in the water of a dream, while she, being carried away by the turbulent current,

fought to get closer, closer to the anchors, closer to something to hold her still and define her.

She fought.

Her arms grew tired as she found her safe place in arms of nameless, faceless men.

This one would give her roots and a home.

Take her to the safety of a nest, where she could grow her colors that would enable her to fly above, lovely in the skin and warm in the comfort. Body as currency, she would remain, until the magician appeared.

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Modern Women
Modern Women

Published in Modern Women

Heartfelt, down-to-earth and real stories by women for women. Support our lovely Modern Women editing team @ ko-fi.com/modernwomen

Gina Lumsden-Kropf
Gina Lumsden-Kropf

Written by Gina Lumsden-Kropf

NYC Artist, Photographer and writer of stories of life & lessons on the way to 55.

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