Conversations Among the Ruins

When I was a little girl
I wanted to be
Sandra D.

Specifically, to
have her waist,
with that red belt
in a leather cat suit

outfit thing at the
end of the movie,

where she completely
morphs herself
and her beliefs

to be
with a man.

I also wanted to
step on John Travolta
in a carnival fun house,

wearing red
stilhettos.

As a child I was often
obsessed with what
I would look like

when I grew up.
Fixated on what I
would weigh and if

people would think
I was as pretty
as the women

on television. I
would often daydream
that I'd grow up

beautiful, and everybody
that ever ignored me
would see me

and regret it.
My hair; perfect,
clothing, shocking.

I would be wanted
and a gypsy
that never wanted

anybody or anything
from anybody in return.

Within the conversations
I have with my child self,
very often when I'm
driving I turn to her and say

"You cannot see me but,
I grew up beautiful in a way
that is so much more special

than the girl in the
cat suit walking the fun
house on television.

You will know how to alter
your voice to make the
people around you

feel as if you are present
with them
and that they matter, weather

you're ordering
coffee or sharing your life
experience.

You will be wild, for a
while, and you will even
have a latex cat suit, that you

will wear in a funhouse
in the desert, with a self
awareness

that no makeup or
waist line could buy,
that no television could

ever tell you
exists. You will far

outgrow
your life

a number of times,
and when drunk men
at your job ask what

your name is
your reply will be

"Hell. My name is Hell."
And they will laugh
nervously because the

skirt and hair and
makeup and shoes
make hell
look so tremendously
true.

Beauty is temporary.
The ability to be genuine
is not and now

I am at an age
where I try to realize
that the day will come

that I will not be
the person in the room
that people turn to see.

The child sitting in the
car with me so often
will still be there though

and also with her in
twenty years, the
person that sits here

today. I wonder
then

what I will say
to the twenty eight year
old spirit of myself.