I BECOME EVERYGIRL BUT A COOLGIRL
I become a sloppy girl. I become a funny girl. I become an orchid, a lilac, a corpseflower. I break open the earth of your lawn smelling like death. You search my qualities for hours and still can’t find me on the internet. That’s because I grow out of you, not into you. Don’t you understand how plants work? The equanimity with which we live? I keep it short and to the periwinkle: I wish to be loved; I will not make a fuss; you may use my corpse as fodder for next year’s flower. It will be best if we don’t move in. You will have to see me strip to the husk. You will have to draw me from my throat like a scarf from the sleeve of a magician. Of course that’s me rotting in the mower waste basket. Yes, that’s my pollen in the air. Don’t we all need an obstacle bigger than our current obstacle to finally overcome both? Stand too close to life and you lose the view. Trust me, I’m a distant girl. I keep jasmine trained to the doorframe. I smoke lavender from the window we once shared. I sit still and prepare for monkhood. Nonetheless, I become a dining chair kind of girl. Dust collects on my uppermost curve. I wait, without movement or complaint, until my turn comes to be pinned beneath the weight of something greater than me. My creaks and groans ward off all love interests. Obviously, I fail to become a cool girl. Assuming everyone has been waiting for me to become a cool girl, I apologize to anyone in attendance of each new moment in which I am still not cool. Sorry, I say in the voice of a fawn given the voice of a human. Unwilling to face the consequences of my disguises, I introduce soft hoofprints to a fine dew. I lay down my ribby body in the city park and panhandle for pats, sometimes bleating as if orphaned or stumbling as if injured. I jut a leg out, flip my tail, pulverize all daisies bold enough to call me their own. Touch my spots? I whine. Caress my velveteen dots? Everyone with a half a conscience bends to stroke the length of my spine. Only the deer leave me to the wolves.