“For her, it started early. Because she was a girl.” – The Need to React by Kathleen Stewart
She’s three. All legs and arms wrestling her mama because her mama doesn’t understand that tights ARE ITCHY and that people look at her funny when she wrestles her brother with that poofy dress on – the dress she told her mama she DIDN’T WANT ON in the first place. She’s gonna do it anyway – wrestle that is and besides, it’s the dress not her that’s causing the problem. Nobody yells at her when she’s wrestling in pants. Nobody’s worried she’ll rip her tights. She’s five and they start coming at her with a brass stick of torture. Tell her to sit still. Tell her that it won’t burn her if she just sits still, but she can’t help but flinch when she feels the heat encroaching on her neck. Instinct. She winces the whole time as it rolls up her neck, past her ear and waits – sizzling and her mama says “See, it’s not gonna hurt you.” The mouth opens again and her locks come tumbling down, her mama’s hand against her neck to catch it. “See?” But she can’t help flinching, and the next time the brass alligator BITES. An inch below her left ear lobe. Her screams are enough to make the alligator retreat and she runs around the house screaming, crying, yelling, “YOU LIED TO ME! YOU BURNED ME!” until she tires herself out. Her mom gives her a couple of minutes, before picking up her sullen body and returning it to be bathroom. To her daughter’s quivering lip she says “I can’t let you leave the house with only half a head curled.” She’s six and likes to shovel food in by the mouthful. Loves the way spaghetti slurps and popcorn deflates on her tongue. But tonight at dinner everyone’s quiet and looking at her. “WHAT?” Her dad swallows, looks at her and says “No boy is going to want to date you, if you keep eating like that.” She’s seven and her brother is chasing her around the house with an airplane gun he swears he’s gonna shoot. After a minute of screaming and running she’s ready to face her tormentor – grabs onto the airplane and tries to rip it off its holster. Everything happens so quickly. His finger pulls the trigger and a plastic cylinder shoots at her face. All she sees is orange and black. Wince and sting. She’s lucky. It misses her left eye by an inch. She’s left with a bleeding red circle, then a circle scab, then a circle scar. But for the next month she cries every time she sees herself in the mirror. Thinks: what boy would want to marry a girl with a scar on her face? She’s twelve and her friends are starting to wear make-up and miniskirts. She decides to wear stripped toe-socks and flip-flops. Her pretty friends tell her how brave she is – swear they’d never have the guts to wear that to school. She thinks it’s a compliment until the invitations to birthday parties conveniently get lost in the mail. She’s thirteen and wields the curling iron like an extension of her own arm. She loves wearing skirts, dressing up. She thinks back to her three year old self and laughs. Silly. |