how to be a WOMAN:
your mother gives you this guide on your thirteenth birthday,
three days before you stain your quilt covers red and all she can say is
'well, you're a bit too old for princess sheets now -
now you have to become the princess.'
you don't feel like a princess -
you feel like the ground the princes fought on for her heart -
but you read the guide anyway with your thighs clamped together and you discover
you discover that you are A BABY-MAKING MACHINE
and that your factory is ready for business -
you've flicked on the lights and flipped over an 'open' sign and now you wait for your first customer.
many roam,
stop to touch the pretty things,
jewelsornamentsyou
but your first buyer does not arrive for a while.
you relax. let your factory gather dust. give it a once-over once-a-month. everything is in working order.
everything is as it is meant to be.
how to be a LADY:
your grandma gives you this guide on your seventeenth birthday and her deathbed,
and you press your sticky lips together and grip her gnarled hand with your baby-soft one and you smile
(just like the men have always told you to).
you scan the pages and breathe in eighty years of talcum-powder and lavender soap and you discover:
you are a PRETTY LITTLE THING
to be seen and not heard and touched but only by your husband and GOD, doesn't your hair look a STATE and are you really thinking about UNIVERSITY do you really think education is for LADIES and your grandma is going, going, GONE.
your lipstick is smudged, darling -
look in a mirror and fix yourself up and realise that everything is in working order.
everything is as it is meant to be.
how to be a MOTHER:
you give yourself this guide on the first 2am wake-up.
it's a scrap of paper and on it it reads:
your daughter is not a LADY.
your daughter is a GENERATION your daughter is a piece of the FUTURE your daughter can think about UNIVERSITY and education IS for girls and her lipstick might be smudged but BY GOD she is a legacy and she has more important things to think about and everything is in working order.
everything is as it is meant to be.
