at age 8 i stopped wearing jeans because they were uncomfortable.

at age 14 i wore high heels, fish nets, and skirts to school and a man once asked my mother if she really let me leave the house looking like that.
i also wore checkered pajama pants and shirts with holes in them to class, i dressed up and down because everyone else seemed to dress in the middle.
i dressed however i wanted to because my mother told that guy to shut the **** up and mind his own business.

at age 16 i wore crop tops the size of sports bras and pants so tight i understood why they called them skin-ny jeans
my **** and *** would be flying all over the place,
but people with larger **** and larger bellies, people like me, weren't supposed to be wearing those sorts of things so i thought i must.
or so i thought.

at age 18 i started dressing in oversized shirts and formless dresses
i didn't believe my body needed to be objectified and put on display anymore,
i didn't need to prove that my waistline was small enough,
i didn't need to wear the spanx i wore every day at 16.

at age 20 i stopped wearing make up or a bra,
my **** sagged and eyes bagged but i wanted to show people that ***** aren't always perky even on twenty year olds.
i also stopped shaving my armpits
i thought they were cute.

at age 22 i stopped shaving my legs.
i didn't think they were cute.
but i realized not every decision i made about how i presented myself needed to be in order to make myself more beautiful.

and at age 24 i shaved my head.

a man once asked me,
as he looked at my college ring wrapping itself around my pointer finger,
if i always did things differently just to be different?
and if id always be doing things just because someone told me not to?

i should have looked at him and asked him
what has he ever been told he cannot do?

Camera, lights, action...
Wake up, get up and don't forget to stay up.
Sway n walk but remember not to drop,
this is what we are going to call fashion.
Bring your hips left to right, stand up tall
and try not to fright. Bright lights up in it,
cause every gentleman loves to stare as the
senorita walks up the stairs in her high stilettos.
Smell of fresh fabric and the grip of leather tights,
take it and wear it because tonight you're the Queen
of the ball baby, coming out through the dark light.
We want fashion, poise and something to call Sensuous.
Do the cat walk
Strike a pose and tip to your toes,
cause tonight is fashion.
Competitive looks and reading books, you know you're in
it for the game to win it.

there's secrets, hidden beneath the corduroy
a world of wonder
where admission varies
guest to guest,
it's a game of guess
at whether you're let in
or you're like the rest,
corduroy's the fashion though
for sure
they'll be others
that hold you high up
just to push you down under

The color of passion, the color of pain



The color of delusion, the color of flames



I slip my swollen soles into your hallow hysteria



Cracked, fragile feet from the frost bite



  of a West Virginia snow



Size six, ruby red stilettos



and I push



and I pull



and I scream



and I sigh



and I try and I try and I try



In my six, ruby red stilettos



Freezing poetic lullabies



Until I can find a place to call my own



  

Sparks of scarlet bloodlines



Dripping down my spine



Wrestling through rivers



between the spaces in my mind


My heart is much too loud for a place like this



My lips are much too quiet for a place like this



I dance with him in



The color of courage

The color of fame

The color of charisma

The color of strength



The color of my lipstick when its fading through my lies



Much too broken



Much too bold



Bursting into a violet plum



until I am in pieces—



until I decide to throw myself back together again



In my size six, ruby red stilettos



and it wasn't my intention to force them to fit



and I push



and I pull



and I scream



and I sigh



and I sell dignity of my poverty



to get them to come off of me



but once I started dancing



I fell in love with the sound



of my heels clicking



the surface of the floor



and I made myself a home



in my size six, ruby red stilettos.

Wrap myself up in Saturday
Tighten the day around me
Relaxation should be fashion
With a stage of people lounging
Letting the week fall away
Wouldn’t that be luxury
A runway show
Of casual mornings, easygoing evenings
Affordability in the convenience
Drink down fancy coffee and hot chocolate
As Saturday becomes a world renowned designer
Of my relaxation

Progress
by Michael R. Burch

There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.

Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.

Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.

The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.

Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...

and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.

NOTE: This poem is almost entirely fiction. There was a Pokemon craze when my son Jeremy was a little boy, and I did see birds and squirrels foraging in parking lots from time to time (and sometimes fed them myself from my car’s window), but everything else is fiction. On the rare occasions that I went to a Burger King, I would go through the drive-in, so I wouldn’t have known who the manager was, or how much time he/she spent on the phone. I think the poem probably started with the image of birds and squirrels squabbling for scraps of food in a parking lot as I waited in a line of slow-moving cars, then evolved as I imagined the hassle of going inside to “speed things up.” Keywords/Tags: America, Americana, American, culture, society, vanity, youth, progress, fast food, video games, Pokemon, MTV, music videos, glamour, models, supermodels, fashion, transparency, see-through, bra, breast, *******