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LJ Idol Week 8: A Traveling Travesty
Dec. 15th, 2011 12:23 pmOccasionally, photographs of me in a dress will show up. They wend their way across the internet. They represent fancy dinners, weddings, graduations.
I look like a fake in all of them. That's not you, my brain says. I don't fill out the top of the dress, ever, and my makeup looks like it was put on with a trowel even when it's the lightest touch.
Heels leave me off-kilter, skirts make me uncomfortable. There's a grace that some people possess when they wear them, an elegant glide to their step, a swing in their hip that exudes confidence and beauty and charisma. I don't have that.
I have arms that are too long, ending in talon-like fingers; I have a fast, tripping step to avoid walking for too long, in case I embarrass myself by falling over. I fidget with my hem, afraid it will pull a Munroe on me.
"You look so good in dresses," my sister tells me. "I wish I had your body" -- by which she means long legs and small hips, because her hips and short legs are the bane of her existence, despite the fact that she is a model, she looks beautiful in everything that she does.
...
Occasionally, photographs of me in a suit will show up. They also spin around the web, photographs of certain parties, Hallowe'en costumes and the like.
At least in these, I have pants. I'm no longer worried about flashing people accidentally.
But the shoulders fit too wide on my narrow body, the sizes are all wrong; either too big, hanging off me like my father's suit, or too tiny, built for the frame of someone I was in high school, back when I didn't care about my appearance and so it came naturally to me.
My hair is too long, even though it barely brushes the nape of my neck. My face has a softness that betrays me, the little weight I've put on in school adding hips and breasts that I don't want to have, that change the entire dynamic of my body, that make me a parody of what I want to be.
"You look so good in suits," an old boyfriend once told me. "You've got the androgynous figure for it." He says this because no matter how many skirts he puts on, his five o'clock shadow will never go away, the bane of his existence, even though he gets more attention than I ever could, hiding in the shadows at the clubs.
...
Naked and looking in the mirror is a trip, because the person I see in the mirror isn't the one in my head. In my head, I am - or I was, until I started looking in the mirror more - a perfect ten. In the mirror, the mole on my nose is prominent, the warping of my eyes from my glasses is unmistakable, the double chin that exists for no reason is omnipresent.
My breasts and hips are too large to hide now. I have curves I don't know how to conceal, and that I don't know how to use. I cross-dress no matter what I'm wearing.
It's time to walk away from the mirror, but I don't know how, because I can't escape this fallen image of myself.
I look like a fake in all of them. That's not you, my brain says. I don't fill out the top of the dress, ever, and my makeup looks like it was put on with a trowel even when it's the lightest touch.
Heels leave me off-kilter, skirts make me uncomfortable. There's a grace that some people possess when they wear them, an elegant glide to their step, a swing in their hip that exudes confidence and beauty and charisma. I don't have that.
I have arms that are too long, ending in talon-like fingers; I have a fast, tripping step to avoid walking for too long, in case I embarrass myself by falling over. I fidget with my hem, afraid it will pull a Munroe on me.
"You look so good in dresses," my sister tells me. "I wish I had your body" -- by which she means long legs and small hips, because her hips and short legs are the bane of her existence, despite the fact that she is a model, she looks beautiful in everything that she does.
...
Occasionally, photographs of me in a suit will show up. They also spin around the web, photographs of certain parties, Hallowe'en costumes and the like.
At least in these, I have pants. I'm no longer worried about flashing people accidentally.
But the shoulders fit too wide on my narrow body, the sizes are all wrong; either too big, hanging off me like my father's suit, or too tiny, built for the frame of someone I was in high school, back when I didn't care about my appearance and so it came naturally to me.
My hair is too long, even though it barely brushes the nape of my neck. My face has a softness that betrays me, the little weight I've put on in school adding hips and breasts that I don't want to have, that change the entire dynamic of my body, that make me a parody of what I want to be.
"You look so good in suits," an old boyfriend once told me. "You've got the androgynous figure for it." He says this because no matter how many skirts he puts on, his five o'clock shadow will never go away, the bane of his existence, even though he gets more attention than I ever could, hiding in the shadows at the clubs.
...
Naked and looking in the mirror is a trip, because the person I see in the mirror isn't the one in my head. In my head, I am - or I was, until I started looking in the mirror more - a perfect ten. In the mirror, the mole on my nose is prominent, the warping of my eyes from my glasses is unmistakable, the double chin that exists for no reason is omnipresent.
My breasts and hips are too large to hide now. I have curves I don't know how to conceal, and that I don't know how to use. I cross-dress no matter what I'm wearing.
It's time to walk away from the mirror, but I don't know how, because I can't escape this fallen image of myself.
