Black Cat Journal

i find that as i age (semi gracefully) i have become more and more, well, girly. i have acquired more pink and lacey garments than i really care to mention. they seemingly leap off the rack and chase me through the store until finally i accept what fate has given me, the dreaded girly girl gene.



i prance through the store in a wave of black hair and my natural exotic musk which smells of rice patties and tropical rains. i pirouette past men and coquettishly lower my almond eyes while letting a throaty laugh spill forth from somewhere deep in the jungle of my body.



i am on a mission to find something to tame the untameable, something to wrangle the wildness in me, one item to cover and yet not constrict my soft body which swells where i wish it wouldn’t. i am short and built for the labor of my mixed heritage and child birth. a modern day pack animal. carrying all the hopes and dreams of my family as well as the weight of my own expectations upon my slender shoulders.



i muscle past taller women, amazonian in stature, bronzed from head to toe, with true American eyes and European hair. i sidle by women, comfortable in their bodies, not ashamed of what their purebred heritage has given them, reveling in the deep curves which attract men like so many bees to lush blooming roses.



but i digress.



i am on a mission to find jeans. to find something to trap the girl in me. to keep her locked away in a cage of blue denim and men’s undershirts. but she’s wily that one. she nudges me none too gently into the direction of skirts, dresses, camiosoles, and lacey garments with more fashion than function. i am distracted by the ribbons, lace, sequins, and beads. the fluffy fabrics which will leave pieces of themselves upon everything i touch as if they were themselves dandelion wisps. floating on the air, carrying little girls wishes in a fragrant updraft.



distracted, the girl inside has snuck past my inner tomboy, who at this very moment betrays me by holding up a little pink number to her zoftig frame and turns to check out her ass in the mirror. traitor, she looks up, smiles, and blows smoke into my face.



i am a girl. a girly girl who hides in the closet so no one will see the glossy red toenails freshly painted shining like a beacon. like a sign in the cartoons pointing out the villains hideout to the hero. i hide so no one will notice the equally bright fingernails of one gripping the Cosmopolitan magazine, and the tips of the other toying with a bit of pink lace.