Tuesday, April 10, 2012

10/30

   Today at school we have a guest speaker. We're learning about prom up-dos from a bald man with goatee curls 6 inches long.
    If I didn't know better, if I didn't know myself, I would think I'm in the wrong place. Manicures and makeup. Shelves and shelves of hairspray, every sort. Blow dryers, curling irons, full-length mirrors for puckering and primping.
   My breed of "girliness" has always been camouflaged by rambunctious-barefoot-tree-climbing-shorts-wearing-runner-sweating sort of things. I fully felt my edges in contrast to other girls' soft lines. I heaved my proud flat chest with a proclamation of rebellion from the feminine way. Fuck what girls "should" be!
As Patti Smith put it - "I protested vehemently that I was never going to become anything but myself..."
    Acceptance can be salty, but it enriches every flavor. I found balance between my feminine and masculine, an ever-moving cursor sliding left and right on the scale. Only then could I embark on something so pegged as cosmetology school.
    I shuffle into class with my trashed boots, tights and a t-shirt. Hair freshly clippered above the ear and mohawk lying limp across my forehead. This day I decided to wear eyeliner.

I am a teenage boy with hips and a B-cup. Raging hormones and gutter humor.
I'm a girl playing with G.I. Joes in the mud after my nail polish has dried.
I am a woman with a grasp on the multitude of identities housed within these flesh walls.

I wield my new pink hair dryer with vigor and command your tresses to obey. My favorite sidekick in my back pocket - my razor, a testament. I am not afraid.




i had to get a photo...for effect, you know.
(i won it today)

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