#pagents

Look-o-Matic 3000: Changing dead batteries, Untangling wires, and Updating systems.

Have you ever tried to sync your breath with someone else's? It can be comforting and intimate for a moment, but if you try to keep it up, you'll notice your chest becoming tight from the effort of trying to carry on a pattern that's not your own. It's not sustainable.

What's that saying? 'you can't lead a horse to honey, but you can attract them to drink vinegar?' something like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I caught on quickly to the fact that others valued me for my body. When others started to point out how they envied me I was told to be gracious. I was told I should smile and thank them; try to ignore that uneasy feeling in your stomach.

"What pretty eyes! I wish I had eyes like yours. I could just snatch em right out!"

"I would do anything to get my hair that color. I wanna chop it off so I can make a wig."

Aunts and older ladies with gnashing teeth and blank eyes. Nothing that they said meant anything. lies? I asked. compliments. My mother later told me.

My hair has always been a pleasant dark copper and I used to keep it incredibly long; or rather my mother used to keep it that way. My lashes were long and persuasive when batted over my big almond shaped eyes. My face set in a soft dreamy look that could read angelic, if you're into that sort of thing.

Apparently, when you have a little girl with pleasant dark copper hair and persuasive eyes; you put her in beauty pageants.

I can't recall much about that point in my life. Nevertheless, the smell of my last pageant, arid hairspray and burnt hair in the locker room of my elementary school, is something that stands out as a pulse in the thin line of my life; flashing before me as I catch traces of it on someone passing by.

I had stopped thinking about how I looked by then. I took complements and kept them close, but they never really meant anything to me. They felt like weird empty statements that you paddle out to little kids when you meet them. Unfortunately, this was not the case with my mother. She understood, far better than I ever could, just how valuable those compliments could be.

So it began.

I was being put in these things before I could talk, but I eventually I could no longer rest on my laurels. I had to put a little effort in. Practicing my walks, sleeping in foam rollers, trying on millions of dresses, each one itchier than the last.

I admired the sequins, the ruffles, the way they sparkled under the spotlights. Still, I dreaded being zipped into those things.

My last dress was yellow with big puffy sleeves and a huge tutu skirt dripping with ruffled lace that flounced when I walked. It felt much different than how I had imagined during practice. I could not wait to take it off.

In the weeks leading up, my cousin Kristina would come over and have me climb onto the slanted roof of the storm shelter and mark out my X's with sticks from the mulberry tree. She would teach me how to hold my hands, how to smile, where to look, as I walked from one spot on the "stage" to the other. I learned quickly. ran and re-ran each motion impatiently, begging Kristian to let me go play with my little brother. When I finally got on stage I wished I had listened more.

I can still hear the hairspray pop and sizzle in the stage lights; I remember each curl straining to be released from their bobby-pin prisons. I hated this part most.

My hair was heavy, and never held a curl, unless; of course, I spent the whole night before rolling each individual strand so tightly that I felt like it was threatening to rip from my scalp. Then I would need to sleep in these hair spray soaked curlers, spend all day in them as well, each bobby pin stabbing me to make sure the curlers stay tight throughout.

Most of the time I felt like those deer I've often seen wandering through campus; sitting in my car in the early morning hours, trying to smoke off the shake the Adderall gave me. Stumbling across the asphalt; they would pause in the median of the parking lot to find refuge. Out. Of. Place. Far. From. Home.