alien SHE.

it's happening again.

i don't recognize the girl in the mirror.

she looks so strange.

who would keep their hair cut like that?

and her eyes.

sometimes too big, sometimes too small

with an odd coloring around them that make it look like

she's recovering from bruising and

slept in her mascara.

and her mouth is large and soft looking,

smeared on thick with a spatula below her nose

and molded like play-doh.

the nose is fine, a little big,

but i prefer to count that as character.

the red break out dots are not character, though.

they are just annoying on such pale skin.

my when my little brother asked if i was going to go to parties in college, i said "i don't know." and then my father said he's happy i have a "baby face", meaning i'd get carded if i tried to buy alcohol. but "baby face" surprised me. threw me off. i always thought i looked my age if not a bit older. so now when i look in the mirror i see a girl years younger, fourteen or fifteen.

she isn't me. i don't look like that. i couldn't. i don't want to.

i don't obsess over how i look.

can't help thinking about the college thing.

what will people see when the see me in two and a half months?

a girl they want to know?

or one who despite what's inside of her, looks too sweet and pure and conventional?

i know it's more than cliche to say i don't know who i am,

but i don't.

and that feels great.

and scary.

i just keep fighting and second-guessing all sorts of decisions so that maybe i can get to a point where there isn't all this dissonance.

but then again, if there was no dissonance, then there would be silence and that's boring.

or, would it be harmony, which is beautiful? i'll never know.

when i was getting ready for prom i was listening to bikini kill. to the song "alien she." and i stood there in my poofy dress, in front of my mirror (the mirror that i think stretches her out a little and doesn't give me an accurate picture) smearing red lipstick on my mouth just as kathleen sang "she wants me to put the pretty, pretty lipstick on."

and i laughed and got worried.

you are just like everyone else.

no no.

you are indulging your "alien"-girl part.

i've always loved that song because it totally captures the conflict i and other girls probably feel between the pull of convention and wanting to spit at the world and reject the shit it throws at its women to help them meet its standards.

o hell, did this turn preachy?

i'm done with this.