The Feline Fatale

"Now I mean, it just wasn't fair. Her dress fit so tight it almost split the seams. Too many chocolate malts. And she walked around on heels so high they looked like little stilts. She walked like a drunken cripple, staggering around the room. A glorious dizziness of flesh."  - charles bukowski

[VOICE OVER] 

January air is an envelope

Put the money inside

Leave your heart on my doorstep and

Those cigarettes in the trash

A mummy unwrapping is a bandage dress that

I'm not letting you in

You're taking my punchlines straight to the gut

Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no

Get the hell out of here's, no

Please don't ever leave me again's

An airport is a calendar

A tight skirt is me penciling you in

I've got a tight schedule but I need words

The road to hell is paved

With SOMETHING OLD AND SOMETHING

NEO-NOIR

January long-sleeves are a bookmark

A telephone booth is a place that

I SHOULDN'T BE CHANGING

A short fuse is a long skirt is my hips are

A film movement from the 1940s

Emphasis on the word movement

[DIALOGUE OVER THE CLINKING 

OF COFFEE CUPS AND TEASPOONS] 

Careful, my coffee

....

Your boobs didn't used to be so big

Because I was too skinny? 

A knock at the door

January is a dissenter

Is the twelfth angry man 

The only vote of NOT GUILTY

Now I can keep my food and my secrets down

Shaking me down like I know the score

I've been too hungry for answers, for a conclusion

Burning stomach on the back burner

Pancakes for dinner is either a distraction

Or exactly what we've been looking for

We'll have to see

If this is syrup or poison

[MUSIC, TRUMPETS MOSTLY. 

JAZZ. THE SOUND OF A DOOR 

CREAKING OPEN AND SLAMMING SHUT]

flower crown by Blue Velvet Vintage on the north loop drag in Austin, TX bluevelvetaustin.com

crop hoodie by American Apparel http://store.americanapparel.net/

pencil skirt by Forever 21 www.forever21.com

Dress Bare Don't Care

Confession: my go-to accessories for a tight bodycon mini-dress are nervousness and apprehension. Honestly, I've worn this dress with so many other things over it that its almost some kind of heavy-handed bullshit extended metaphor for the way I need to cover myself up... Or. Or that's exactly what it is. When where why and how do girls start hating their bodies? Why is everything a double standard? Or a double edge sword? Why am I suddenly convinced at 3 am on a Thursday that rhetorical questions are acceptable to use in my writing? 

Lets face it - girls are fucked up. I'm fucked up, & I'll be the first to admit it. Okay, maybe I was the last person to admit it, BUT STILL. I bought the Black Milk pills dress in some semblance of solidarity with all my other mentally unstable girls. (Not in support of some sort of recreational drug abuse free-for-all; not that I judge.) This dress came in the mail, & I hung it in my closet, & hung my head in shame with all of the mixed feelings that came in the mail right with it. As one of my favorite poets Meg Freitag once wrote, "I’m trying to get into self-love, but I keep confusing it with self-lust." Sometimes I think I'm ugly & that's natural for any woman & any HUMAN. Sometimes I think I'm pretty, & then immediately wonder if this is vain. Maybe, but probably not. I like when I'm fearless and self-certain. This lil number was meant to be worn by itself, so it felt strange that wearing it as such was a gutsy move. Because being body positive is a gutsy move. Nothing good comes easy. No adventure & no personal growth has ever come from the comfort zone. Buy a crazy bodycon print dress. & don't style it with anything. Style it with skin. Or maybe just solid opaque stockings underneath. A statement necklace, scarf, or jazzy shoes. A statement piece for people to stare at instead of the little flaws you think you have. It is my true belief that no one is flawed on the outside. Here's how I will always, always explain body image-its the exact same concept when you hear your voice played back to you in a video, or on your answering machine. Your jaw drops, and you immediately wonder, "is that what I sound like?" Now amplify that thought at the realization that when you look in the mirror & don't like what you see... that's not what you look like.

I'm always going to be crazy. We all have issues, and maybe relapses that come with those issues. Our minds are a little wonky, &are easily influenced by everything & everyone around us. I am both for & against my body. At the end of the day, my body is one of the few things that is mine & mine alone. On some days its a work of art. On no day is it something to be ashamed of. This blog could have been two sentences. It could have read, "Wear tight clothes. It's not slutty." I honestly, & FINALLY appreciate being a woman. I don't know how to make everyone else feel the same. But it may or may not involve wearing tight clothes. Try it. You'll like it. 

Dress by Black Milk Clothing: blackmilkclothing.com/