Why She Did

She's wearing horns, and sometimes she'll wear cones instead of a blouse. She's dancing over an air vent, she's wearing this little thing and it's showing other little things whose scientific names make us uncomfortable, like "areola." She is stripping off what little there is, but not entirely. She looks like she wants us to see everything, she moves in that way that maybe, we think, she does.  She's wearing a stuffed leopard over her crotch, and sparkly rainbows over her nipples. What does that mean? We're not sure. These are new, complex images that bring us to old conclusions.

And she used be be such a nice girl when she worked for Disney, when she tasted Kix cereal in the commercial, when she wasn't shaped like rising hills, the ground that defies gravity, this girl that we don't know any better now than we did then. Why would the girl who kissed Mickey Mouse shave her head?

Why she did, and why she does, and why she will do it again, none of us will really know. We can ask her, or we can let some else ask her, and we can read it in a magazine, the one where she's in an acrobatic position on the cover. But no matter what her answer is, we'll draw our own conclusions. Some of us will think she's a tramp, some of us will think she's liberated, and some will think she wants attention or money.

I think about Halloween.That night, when it was young, human beings used to wear masks, not for candy, but to frighten evil spirits. We wore horns, we stuck out our tongues, and we shouted at the devil to keep him from taking our souls.

Tomorrow there will be a picture of her in a spandex gum wrapper. Her hair will be sprayed and teased into the shape of a vulva. She'll hiss, and scream, and shake, and bear skin. And some of us will look but most of us will turn away just when she wants us to, so that we can't take her soul.

And we used to be such nice girls.

I Wanna Wear

I wanna wear suspenders and a tie. A fedora maybe and a vest for no reason. My short hair should be shorter. I'm becoming the Tomboy I used to be, before I had thoughts like, "I need to look like a girl." I didn't just have those thoughts. They screamed at me, terrified, at the age of ten. "Look like a girl NOW," "Grow your hair NOW or you'll never get a boyfriend." "Don't wear that T-shirt with Marylin Monroe on it, they think you're a dyke." "Don't walk like that," "Don't say that, he'll think you're trying to be smart," "Real girls don't run fast," "Real girls don't think about girls." "Real girls don't cry about girls."

I don't care if no man ever finds me attractive again, or a woman for that matter, not if I have to change who I am again.  And I don't care if my mother gives me that confused and disappointed look if I don't wear makeup to weddings or Christmas. Maybe I'll wear eyeliner and a suit. But no more dresses, no more Look Like a Girl Now skirts, blouses, hair, goopy face base, Look Like a Real Girl earrings, exhaustive shoe-to-outfit coordinations, or walking into a room and STILL wondering after all of these years, "I wonder if they know I'm a girl."  And needing them to know.

I'm girl enough.  When I dress like this now, like I really am in my black T-shirts and jeans shorts, sneakers, short-short hair, and no make up, I feel just like this

ps- Like the song, I mean. Not Florence, who's wearing a skirt that's cute on her, but I wouldn't be caught dead in.