This is me signaling you in Applesauce and Canned Fruit
To ask what you think I should do, how you think I should live, how you think I should love like you loved. I am choosing applesauce in pouches and in boxes, the applesauce wrapped both in the pouch and then enclosed in a box with small windows on the side so we can see each type — plain, cinnamon, strawberry. On the packaging is an apple on a skateboard and an apple on a scooter riding through a forest. One of the apples is a nerd, and the other apple is a bad boy. Both apples are eating pouches of applesauce. I want to tell them the forest is dark and filled with evil, and I want to warn them they are eating their friends and classmates. I don’t know how. They’re just children after all and children need fun. I want you to take over, Vicki. I will put my head on your shoulder, we will slow dance to Eternal Flame. Am I the bad boy apple for even thinking it? This is me signaling you. To ask what you think I should do, how you think I should live, how you think I should love like you loved.
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So many mixed messages as I push my body through Athletics
So many varieties of ruched bra-like items and comfy leopard pants you can lift purple weights in. They brush against my unformed self. It’s startling how strong the mannikin presents, how put together, more masculine-feminine, and yet completely white. A blank slate. Blank eyes. Ridges for eyebrows. Neither angry nor happy. Neutral. Their spandex gives them the feelings for which they lack, it’s the magical armor I’ve been searching for. Feeling Under Armor. In leopard in cheetah in panther in jaguar in tiger in lynx. Also, pink versions of each. If I were to wear a wild cat, I would wear the paws because really those are the most magnificent part of the beast and the fastest. Or maybe I’d just wear the paw pads — one on each one of my fingertips so when I play piano, I sound gloriously muffled. Just when I think I could be a predator, suddenly, “Eternal Flame” comes on. Isn’t it funny how that always happens? God, it makes me laugh. Now you’re laughing, too. Even the Bangles know I was born to be the prey.