i call upon anyone who will listen to me rant and rave, prophecise my thoughts in unkempt styles, spout my virtues about the neandrathals, wish with all my might that i was born a man, and thank the heavens twice that i was born a woman, because admittedly, i like frilly skirts.

i never wanted to be anything, until someone doubted that i could be something. i will prove them wrong, and prove them wrong until my blood runs cold and my tears run dry. i will make sure that my work is done hard and done right and i will be fired a thousand times and quit a thousand more, but i will be something.

i will wash my hair with store-bought shampoo and i will bash laboratories for testing my pantene on innocent mice. i will be hypocritical squared, i will be anemically vegetarian but i will buy leather boots to warm my feet in february snow. i will climb three mountains and howl at the top, and i will complain all the way down because i'm tired.

i will be predictable, to those who know me, but i'll surprise you once a week. i will praise sand-castles of children and stomp them once they've turned around, because i am a self-declared bitch and i'm so god-damned proud of it. i will be nice, nice, nice, and you will piss me off and wish my death a thousand times but it will never come... you will see me in your favorite restaurant and i will ruin your dinner just by sitting across from you with a sexier man and a prettier dress, and i will wink at you, smile twice, and leave more satisfied than you ever came. (and i will feel guilty about it later.)

i will be hateful and cruel and i'll rise to the top, god dammit, i will make it, just watch me. i will show all those peter keatings that this howard roark DOES have what it takes and i will build a monument on charm and grace and i'll spit off the top floor and wipe my upper lip with my sleeve just because i can.

i will be harsh, i will be angry, i will be unrelentlessly witty at cocktail parties. i will break hearts and stomp souls, i will drink like a man, and smile like a lady, i will stop at nothing to be heard, but i will be timid looking in your eyes. i will ride on your shirt-tails until you show interest, and then i will avoid you, pretend you don't exist. i will make you cry, and you will love me anyway. i will be a cold-hearted demon, but i will hug my teddy-bear in slumber, dream of cotton-candy clouds and snore endearingly.

i will make you hate me and ask you why you do. but i will never betray you. if you ask me how you look in a rumpled shirt and ankle-high socks, i will scoff, and laugh, and tell you to change. and you will respect me, because you will look better, don't deny it.

and all the while, i try to prove that i can be anything, while i doubt myself a million times, while i fall in love and fall apart and pick myself up just to prove to myself that i can. and if i didn't have to show the world that i can be something more than the dot at the end of your run-on sentence, i would just lay here, motionless, drinking chamomile tea and reading sunday papers...but i need to be something more than forgotten just so i can say that i'm
better
remembered
alive.

07/10/2004

Posted on 07/11/2004
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer