Insomnia Diary

Growing at the speed of fashion

Growing at the speed of fashion for A. It gets harder to find untroubled ways to feel beautiful with so many nipples selling beer onTV. She’s eight and convinced her skin’s an insult to the cotton weaves and rayons called clothes. Her hips alone are schizophrenic, too wee for the wiggle she wants though she’s also convinced they could be smaller, more ambiance than support. I remember things about eight that might be relevant here like not remembering anything about eight. I’ve seen pictures. I had exploding hair and must have loved the earth because I wore dirt to every occasion. Hiding should be the career of a child. Breaking things is good or licking rocks. Her ears are pierced, she likes to pull rouge from a plastic purse and brag it across her cheeks.  Just alone in a corner of the couch with a book and chewing her hair she’s gorgeous like air and water are to delirious flesh. When we were fish, cool wasn’t a problem, gangly girls on the savannah didn’t ask what implants are. She giggles when her mother says balloons and runs outside, hair dancing back like wheat in a storm. To sandbox, swings, to pester the dog from its siesta? No, there’s a patch she’s worn to dirt honing the reflex of catwalk. Beside the swing set, under the willow’s dreadlocks, she tries to fit inside the glide she’s seen models own but stumbles more than floats, her dream defeated by her bones. And the pause before the turn she gets wrong, her habit’s still the sleepy pace of show and tell, but with reps she’ll improve,  she has the drive that comes from knowing she’s nothing if not watched.  ...