Vanity Fair

*So my palm-tickler stoped by while I was tweaking this piece. In my limited Malagasy I told him it was about men and women. I found it ironic - maybe he thought the poem was about him - and partially it is. The angry part of the quiz for comic relief.
*He is not allowed to visit me at my house anymore by the way. I'm pretty sure that whenever I went to the market and his friends saw me, they would go tell him and then he would end up visiting. Not cool. So I finally went and told the people at the commune office and they went to him with the commune police saying he couldn't come around anymore.




I always wondered what I'd look like with a shaved head
It seems so easy
No dealing with curling irons or straighteners
Shower time cut in half
All I'd need are some clippers

What do you think y'all?

Could I pull off the G.I. Jane Demi Moore look?
Or maybe Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta?
Could I be the
No-I-don't-have-hair bad-ass
Dying in a blaze of gunfire
But only after I have seduced you in ways that you've only imagined
Could I be a type of sexy like that?

Nope
No, I'm too scared
'Cause what if my head is a wonky shape
Or it never grows back the same length
Or what if people think I'm sick
That cancer is my hairdresser
And the only beauty they see in me
Is because they think I know more about life than they do

Why give up my hair
My one vanity
My beauty like that?

And besides
I'm afraid it wouldn't make a difference
I'm afraid I'd still be beautiful
Still have to ignore cat calls
And learn to speak rejection
Like I learned that
Below here, you're a prude
But above here, you're a slut

Call me shallow
Call me a bitch too obsessed with looks
Tell me beauty is only skin deep
And what matters is inside
Tell me of course I don't believe in plastic surgery
Because I'm already beautiful
That I do not know what it feels like
To break mirrors
That repeat time and time again
That this world is not fair

Call me vain
Call me anything but pretty
Tell me anything but beauty
Becuase beauty is cat calls and rejection
It's learning to yell fire
Becasue no one responds to
No, Help or
"Stop!"

It's skipping meals to go to the gym
A guilty binge with a painful purge
And still two inches away from looking like her
Jealousy and competition
Tainting bonds of friendship
Of sisterhood

It's unearned privileges
And the constant struggle
To prove you have a brain
It's swallowing pride
Facing the reality
That you are one of the lucky ones

One of the lucky ones
That only gets gropped and grabbed
Only belonging to lustful thoughts
And unwanted stares
One asking each and every day
How can I trust you or any of your brothers?

I wish I were plain
I wish years of this shit
Hadn't made me this way

I'd donate my vanity
To the Locks of Love
My smooth skin
To the puberty impared
And to the woman buying anit-wrinkle cream
In Walgreens
As for the cross-dressing man
Awaiting surgery
Every curve would go to her

I'd give away all these things
People told me were beautiful
If it would allow me even a moment's rest...

But I'm afraid it wouldn't make a difference