an: I'm finally ready for my big reveal.

A Handful of Glitter and Dust

After a long sideways glance in some dirty, sticky, subway bathroom mirror

I’ve discovered that I in my twenty-five dollar ugly shoes and my new breasts am

that woman that they talk about sometimes, shallow scars curving where I went under the knife

to perfect myself, they’d say, and big big Bowie eyes and a nineteen forties hourglass

that makes those from that era think it’s time

I showed that I could conquer my fellow women (and my fellow men) and it left me absolutely nothing but a boring battlefield and no memories of flowers or passion

A blank canvas with perhaps a smudge of teenage slobber and a careless middle finger—

Big boys may not cry, but big girls don’t feel.

I know what it’s like to be stopped on the roadside, fourteen with a red trail of hair down my back, black shirt, short short shorts and milky-white legs freshly shaven that morning in the shower,

by a man much older than me who seems intent on obtaining my digits and is this a cause for jealousy? Oh, you’re so lucky. He was cute.

No, it’s a cause for shame, it’s a cause for loving that knife, loving my wounds and caressing the place where flesh used to be, it’s a cause for crying when that older boy says fuck me, fuck me, I’m imagining you fucking me—

There was this seventeen year old punk when I was thirteen who was big and broad and some might say fat, blond with his skateboard and his friends and his muscular arms, and I thought that he might like some attention because I knew the type that other girls went for, perfect and jocky and physically fit, and so I remarked that this boy was hot. I liked how he moved. I liked how he looked slightly defeated and spoke loudly.

Soon he had my number, and he called me after he’d been smoking pot, laughed at the mentioning of my mild-mannered seventh grade boyfriend, a perfect, docile geek in glasses, he laughed, and it seemed silly to me, too, like a dress rehearsal, playing dolls.

His voice went up-down with the pot, he bragged about the sports he was in, he asked if I was a redhead, said he’d heard I was pretty good looking from my friends. I knew exactly what they'd told him. Long legs, redhead, Ds. I was thirteen. I knew exactly how it would be, so I slammed down the receiver, made up some lies when he called every night around ten.

I remember feeling sort of fantastic and sick, a real big joke but also like I’d won a prize. I stayed away from boys like him, boys who obviously wanted me and I stuck to unreadable encyclopedia boys with aversions to touching and then girls who I could tell I was boss to, confused people who were canvases themselves, that I would absolutely never grow attached to because we were so comfortable.

and now, what’s left? Scars, a mirror, a little bit of dust, and a pile of the old red glitter. Maybe I can spread my hands and let it fly into the wind, start up a few sparks, make a signal, call them all back like migrating birds on the black horizon.