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By Misti Date: 2004 May 16 Comment on this Work [[2004.05.16.16.37.1988]] |
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look at you not even thirty yet and you live in a sweet brick house in a sleepy country town with a husband who spoils you with new cars and jewelry and Colorado vacations yes, he provides you and your two children with a nice fat fluffy white marshmallow life and you don't work you shop and decorate and teach Sunday school and cheat on your husband every couple of years because you married out of high school and sometimes get a hankering for the hedonism you missed out on by getting knocked up at eighteen and not making it to college when I see you I know you feel sorry for me thinking I envy you because I've gone from town to town job to job man to man heartache to heartache unlike you I have paid for my mistakes I can't get away with my surplus of sins and I never told you this but I think you know intuitively with your sharp Scorpio eyes that I have a handful of clothes and they're mostly secondhand or clearance crap from Wal-Mart and I have existed on Tostitos and jalapenos and I have survived long Friday and Saturday nights with no cable TV and no ringing telephone too old and used up to believe Cosmo's lies too wise for those stupid fucking quizzes you look at me and know that I have struggled but I hope you also know that whatever happiness I've found is hard-won and authentic I was a doll once like you and I jumped from the shelf and found myself in a cracked mirror that told the truth and I divorced the ways of my youth, the pretense the mythology so popular in Texas that smart people who read and challenge are boring and useless all boys need to know is football and cars and beer and women and how to make money to provide for a big fat family all girls need to know is Mary Kay and James Avery and interior decorating 101 and keep those legs crossed until you've got that diamond ring on your finger then spread them wide and let one man inside so that he will provide you with all a girl needs to be happy, more or less even if you cry yourself to sleep because you can't come and you hate this town and you will never be a real live girl tripping all over the world with no strings to make you smile and make you frown you will never own your own expressions but you think I envy you, bless your heart maybe I do, a little I envy your ignorance, your safety in numbers your golden slumbers on your queen sized bed the emptiness in your head that doesn't know enough to ask for more. |