Why does everyone ask little girls to smile? Twirl? Show themselves like jewelry box dolls until about age thirteen when people frown, whisper, She’ll grow out of it. Such an awkward phase. By thirteen, I was making myself a ghost. If I know anything, it’s that we’ll have eternity to be ghosty. It’s only right now, in this stopover of a body, that we’re here. So why suggest that a little girl, grown girl, hate a body into invisibility? I can unghost my heart, my lungs, spleen, liver, lymph--this entire way station, one section at a time. At least, I’m trying. This body has an expiration date. So while I am in it, I work to return to these legs, these arms, this belly, this sex. Let me revel well past my thirteenth year in this gifted vessel, still not yet gone.
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We’ll have eternity to be ghosts. I love this.
Julie, I love this. I’m with you on this subject and feel it deeply. I turn 60 this year and have two daughters, and have always been acutely aware of the gravely unhealthy pressures put on women, starting at an early age. It’s a large part of what I write about and what I’d like to be a part of changing. Thank you for this. I am really enjoying your poetry.