Rides, Cookies and Dresses

Every morning, I brush my black hair; a hundred strokes. I change my clothes, again and again. The skirt-line becomes higher, the cleavage lower, each time.

I cake my flawless face with powder, circle my blue eyes with liner and drench my long lashes in mascara. I flutter them at boys, while flicking my beautiful hair, my slim legs recrossing.

My high, mocking laugh makes your cheeks flush when you're dropped off at school, packing those cookies and wearing that dress.

You suppose I am oblivious to the tears you hide when I sneer at your teacher’s praise, your stammering attempt at humor and the padding in your bra. You think I ignore your brown eyes from across the room, when you gaze at me and my adoring crowd. You cannot imagine I know the bruises on your heart, your tears at night and your sick feeling during the day, which I alone cause.

You are wrong. I know, for it is what makes me smile a little inside every day.

The boys talk to you, not the padding in your bra. The friends around you laugh at your joke, not the smoothness of your voice. The teacher admires your mind, not your face.

You fluster at your father’s worry while sitting in his car, the lopsided cookie your mother baked and the old dress your sister picked out of her closet for you. Meanwhile, my vision colors red at your attempts to be me. Because you don’t catch my gaze from across the room. Because you cannot imagine the bruises to my heart, my tears at night and my sick feeling during the day.

For you are loved, while I am not.