brunette, 5’4

brown eyes

[blank] pounds

dancer

writer

athlete

good at the school part

I’ll list some expectations society has made for me

I should be nice

I should always smile

My laugh should sound like butterfly wings

I should love puppies and elderly people

I should volunteer

I should compliment everyone in my grade at least                                       

once every 29 days

(then restart)

I should bake for no reason, random celebrations

Bringing smiles and sugar and my sweet image

I should be smart

I need good grades

so I get into a good school

so I can get a good job

so I can have good

(rich and not f**ked up)

babies

I should always have my homework done

My teachers should all love me

I should be beautiful

(not just pretty, everyone’s pretty nowadays)

I should stand out as gorgeous

I need to have something special I was born with

to make someone envious

my eyes should be blue

(or green or bluish green or greenish hazelish brown)

I should have clear skin

Like a clear pan scrubbed with steel wool and bleach, cleared of food bits, clear

nose small, cute, straight

eyebrows thick

(not bushy)

lips like pastel blood

my eyelashes long

I can’t sacrifice them on wishes

teeth whitened with tasteless charcoal

my legs should be long, like the models

(the beautiful models)

I should be thin

my stomach flat, nothing spills above and below my waistband

no extra curves on the side, no loveless handles

my legs toned

arms delicate like a thin glass baby carriage

I should be curvy

shouldn’t look like a square stick that could snap

nice butt

hips that get his attention

but curves only in the right places

I should be funny

make loud commentary in big rooms

laugh with my girls

joke with the guys

(one of the guys)

I should be athletic, score the most, known around school as the good one

but wearing a skirt designed so we look good, hair still perfect, no sweat, redless face

still pretty, no makeup

I should kiss girls because it’s hot

but I shouldn’t like it

I should be a party girl

(“Don’t be lame!”)

the fun loud one

who drinks

and smokes

and dances

but I should stay in control and know my limits because a lost soul is just sad

I should be nice smart beautiful thin curvy funny athletic hot fun

am I any of those things?

I can cross a few off the list

the lists

with my silver-ink pen that

bleeds through thin pages

but I’m supposed

to cross off

them all, somehow.

sixteen-year-olds, please

this is my plea to you

cross out the entire list,

don’t hope or expect or manipulate

anything out of yourself

and especially out of others.

if nobody else wanted to be

all these things at once,

(why do we base what we want on what others want?)

I’d be okay with being

just a few,

with being me, a

sixteen year old