Being Miss Picture Perfect

girls know what it's like to look at each other

and compare all the fragments on display—

the nose, the lips, the eyes, the curve of a cheek—

until there's nothing to see but bent reality.

at first, I didn't try to play pretend in these games,

but eventually I was no better than the next one.

the hair, the make-up, the art of becoming a doll—

there were too many quantities and qualities to name.

and it only got worse once the boys were involved,

their appraising gazes like tokens in an arcade game,

revving us up and trying to take us around for a spin.

often, I felt like the painted parts of a pinball machine,

all the lights and whistles and sweeping colors of it,

but the trophy wasn't mine when the game was over.

I could sing in red and pink and soft violet tufts,

the words honey-sickly-sweet as they left my mouth,

only for the boys to depart like recess was over for the day.

no matter how you looked or preened or flirted, I learned,

there were plenty of times when they just wouldn't stay.

so began my love affair with bitter poisons spilling out

whenever I crossed paths with a dreaded male decoy,

only for me to realize over time that it wasn't a boy I wanted,

though I lived for the chase that made me feel alive inside.

it wasn't until years and years later, scanning the internet,

when my eyes fell on black, gray, white, and purple—

and suddenly something made sense, clicking into place.

the world may still tell us a perfect woman wants only a man,

but there are colors enough to show how that mindset

is beginning to fade into the begone gray where it belongs.