volume i
A Portrait of My Sixth-Grade Self
___________________
Eleven-year-old fingers
swollen with baby fat
dig into the gaudy shimmer
of turquoise eyeshadow
encased in its shattered compact.
I apply the pigment,
erratic smudges extending
from my lash line
to just below my untamed brows.
The blue powder accentuates the swirls
of my fingerprints in dizzy figure eights.
But you can't quit your own skin
like you can quit ice skating lessons.
I am in the sixth grade
when the Popular Girls
in my class tell me that,
if I want to get a boy to like me,
I have to change the way I look.
I abide by the rules of the
Unofficial Mean Girl Doctrine:
{no. 1}
I mustn't wear sweat pants,
these sloppy Old Navy rags
that I have owned for three years.
See,
denim is superior to cotton
even though it leaves
cavernous indentations
on my stomach.
Sweat pants forgive
the extra swell of your waist line.
Denim punishes you
for what you don't have,
more specifically
for what you have too much of.
I ask my mom for skinny jeans
because perhaps if I can
shrink all that I am
into this blue, unyielding fabric
I will feel thinner than I actually am.
We buy the skinny jeans from Old Navy.
{no. 2}
My signature high pony tail is
unacceptable.
I should wear my hair down,
they profess.
I am not sure if this is
because of the tufts of frizz
that loom over my scalp
like wasted dandelion seeds
(I wish... I wish... I wish...)
or if this is just a necessary ritual
in the abandonment of my girlhood.
After I unsheathe my curls
from their rubber-band Bastille,
their trial commences.
My ringlets slither
in hostile circulations,
executing frequent detours away
from anyone who might scoff
at their animalistic bedlam.
If only I could will
my spectators to stone.
Cuz no one ever dared
**** with Medusa
and her curls.
Instead,
I settle for a flat iron.
{no. 3}
Do everything in your power to be
Beautiful
including, but not limited to,
the laws indicated above.
Yet,
despite my grandest efforts,
it is never enough.
I am never enough.
I am the Walmart Edition
of what the Popular Girls
want me to be.
With my gaudy eyeshadow and the
cheap Dollar Store bracelets
that I wear around my wrists,
plastic flowers blooming
upon threaded stems
that nip at the hair on my arms.
One day on the bus ride home,
a boy from my class tells me
I am too hairy.
"Huh?" I ask,
pretending I haven't heard him.
"Nothing," he mumbles back to me.
See,
little girls are supposed to play with
jump ropes and Barbie Dolls.
They are not supposed to
play with razors as they strip away
every misplaced hair on their body
or consult Teen Vogue
for the latest beauty hacks
like they are Gospel.
This year of 2011/2012
has been engraved into
the historical road map
of my every insecurity.
The legend of this map,
depicted in smeared globules
of sugar cookie lipgloss,
deliver me to my destination:
self hatred.
Mascara stains the
topography of my flesh
in inky, dotted lines
I follow.
I plummet
like the eternal run
in my stockings.
One way plane ride
non-stop
never to return
from this perception of ugliness
and then--
flight
down.
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