Before she can talk
they’ve got her stuck in
pink dresses, in cribs
with dolls and hearts and
flowers surround her
and even before
she can read, she’s learned
to walk in high-heels
and leopard-skin skirts.
They’re preparing her
for the eyes of men,
showing her what she
should be for them. No
hips yet, soon enough
though she will get them
along with early
breasts and her monthly
rushing of blood (her
connection to women everywhere,
her source for power)
which she’ll be told to
hide, despise, disguise
with PMS pills
and individually
wrapped tubes of scented
bleached cotton that come
in pink boxes on
shelves at the grocery
store. The same place where
her mother will buy
her magazines, when
she is just barely
thirteen, full of half-
naked women—
Beautiful. Confident. Thin.
She will believe those
women are real and
she’ll trust them as her
mentors when they say
they know 10 things a
guy really wants. And
she decides it must
be that which she is
missing: a guy. So,
she sets out to find
him the only way
she has been shown. She’ll
stop eating cake at
birthday parties, she
will start eating pills
instead of food. She
will fall for the cool
athletic boy in
school, the one who would,
in Kindergarten,
pretend to shoot her,
the one who calls her
a chick, the other
guys fags, her friend fat.
The one who’s father
spanked him for playing
with his sister’s great
Barbie collection.
The one who is so
dreadfully sad, but
would rather die than
share it. And she will
devote herself to
him, believing she
can save him, she can
be pretty for him.
She’ll cover her face
each day with products
tested on rats and
unknowingly, she’ll
be hiding behind
all that lip gloss and
mascara and blush
like the child who’s been
forgotten during
a game of Hide-and-Seek
still there waiting to
be found beneath the
covers of her bed.
