Cameo

I adore pretty things. Ivory lace and ribbons. Bone earrings and pearls. Fishnet stockings and silk hosiery. I wont wear any of it in public.

It's not about private pleasures or moral high ground. I feel like a transvestite when I dress feminine in public. As if everyone is looking at me from the corner of their eyes and thinking, "She doesn't belong in that dress".

I want fake eyelashes and ruby rings. Eyes lined in black smoke and glitter. Flowered cotton dresses and pink blush. When I was little I didn't have this hang up. I would scream and throw a tantrum anytime my mother tried to put me in pants, insisting girls only wore dresses. For my mother, who grew up not allowed to wear pants and only dresses, this was frustrating.




Everything in my room was pink including the walls. I had a ceramic unicorn collection. I was happy. And then when I became old enough to worry about what other people thought of me, old enough to be teased about my body and have little boys tell me what a woman looks like (blondes always grow up to have big tits) that's when I hid under baggy jeans and sweatshirts and then layers of black. I hid anything girly about myself because I was afraid and ashamed of the way women were thought of. I'm not a little girl anymore. Fuck those boys and fuck the men they grew up to be too.




Porcelain rose earrings and satin slips. Black and blue nail polish. Flowered doc martins and straw cow girl hats. Silver bangles and an engagement ring.