I can’t help feeling sick to my stomach when I see them together.
Her thickly-lined eyes and pursed purple lips punch me in the heart.
I wish I could walk with that kind of pride; maybe he would look at me
In that disbelieving, thankful, adoring way, with that cold, old-soul smile.
But I am not a rare breed like she is. I am no gem. I am easily imitable.

He loves her for being a black opal – unusual, exceptional, and singularly his.
I long to be the pretty, peculiar girl he could prize, the object of his affection.
But I am a common moonstone, something he could overlook and forget.
He has a powerful pull, an indisputable allure and his moon eyes hypnotize.
I know that the feeling he gives me is poison, but I’d gladly die by him.

I’d kill to be his, to lace his hand in mine, to push my heart into his.
If I had the strength, I might just kill her. I’d take away his precious black opal,
And I’d teach him to love something unadorned, and I’d learn to be unprecedented.
Then he would fall for this entirely calculated “candid eccentricity” I presented,
And I would become what he never knew he wanted. His newer, shinier black opal.