I have opened my closet, only to find it empty.

There are no dresses for me to wear. There are no shoes. I think I must not be in the right house. Am I not living with my lover, in the beautiful house that is so far in the country we hear crickets instead of traffic? It's the house that I helped to decorate and make so pretty. And this is my closet, my very own, filled with my prettiest dresses.

Something sinks in my heart. I know what is going to happen next. As if I already know, I go to the bureau. I open a drawer, and there is nothing in it except a dead animal, like a badger or a large mole. Something that was found in the garden the day before and dumped in the trash. Only it is here.

I am getting into a panic. Who would put this in the drawer? And who would take all my clothes? Only one person.

My lover does not love me anymore.

I am in a strange room where my lover is. Another woman is there. It's as if I'm behind a glass. They don't hear me, they take no notice of me.

They are kissing. The woman goes over to the closet, opens it, and there are all my clothes. She laughs. She says that she deserves them all, and she is glad that now she has them all. She opens a drawer.

Inside is the dead animal. Is it possible that she is the one that is being made the fool? No...the two of them laugh as she takes the thing out.

"Goodbye, Mylene," she shouts, and throws it through the window, which shatters with a terrific crash.

I see champagne glasses broken in the fire.

They are naked, in front of the fire. All my lingerie is strewn about. She is trying some of it on. What she likes, she keeps. What she doesn't, she rips in half with her bare hands, to great approval and applause.

I approach them. Don't they see me?

They turn around.

Now, from their viewpoint, I see...there I am, a mannequin. My face is waxy. My eyes stare.

I am barely a female form. There are no nipples on my breasts. My breasts are not even really there. There is no pubic hair on the model, it is just a plain slope of hard plaster.

Now I see it all from my viewpoint again. I am immobile. I can not speak. I can not even shed a tear.

I am nothing. She takes down a pair of my panties, to put on another pair. She has my flame red pubic hair. She has stolen it all from me. Or was it given to her?

My lover kisses her and they begin to make love.

I see myself standing there, nothing between my legs, no nipples, no face. Even my face has now been smoothed over into nothing.

I want to say, "Without you I am nothing."

I want to say, "Why did you leave me?"

I want to say, "Please bring me back to life."

But there I stand, a mannequin. The shell of a female form, unadorned and unloved. Unreal.

In the graveyard, in the family plot, I see a tombstone with no name on it. It must be mine. I should at least be buried there, with my name on my stone.

But my lover has left me for another. I am neither dead nor alive.

"I am nothing without you," I try to say. The words do not come out.

The last image I have is of dust that seems to be forming on plastic shoulders. The dust starts out white, and becomes grayer and then dark gray, and then it begins to be black and gritty and thick.

When I wake, I want to call the one who hurt me and left me and took my heart.

But to say what?

Once you have been abandoned, you mean nothing to the person who left you. You almost mean nothing to yourself.