skinny jeans

baby grew up in freshmanhomeroomwhen the two white boysfrom behindcalled her curry-muncherbaby laughed.they had gel in their hair and theycackled.it was a jokefresh from the playgrounds andskidding off the jungle gymbaby laughed.saidshut up shut upnoshe didn’t know much yet, butsomething behindbaby’s budding breastdid not want itdid not want this role in the play, nobaby no.***baby grew up in PE classwhen the lanky boy pointed at her legs -he was 8. and baby was baby.she was angry he was asking herto be someone elseand she was angry too that he had to askthat she hadn’t already done the longjump for him.so baby told the boy“ask god!” and went home to askher motherfor a goddamn razor.but mama said no sobaby grew upgrizzly grisly gorgeous. ***baby grew up in the northside school librarylaughing at horrid little henryand memorizing the fairies, the wingedfriendships of her imaginationthese braided blonde white girls who could never eat her foodbut still stayed to talk; baby took out a dictionaryto learn the word “prairie”just so she could understand her new friends better.she especially loved the babysitters club.she liked it when they criedwhen they solved all the problems when theyslurped up milkshakespicking at the seams of their evenly knit existencejust for the sake of teenage beauty queen lollipop rebellionthis was such a gifttheir company.baby loved to call them in the darkthe girlish incantations of their names sonothing like herscomplexlike pop lyrics likecramming candies on the diabetic tongue sobaby asked her friendsto call her Veronicafrom then, wishing her real namemade a bit more sense, sung a bit morenormal, could belong in their clubor a magical book somewhere.***baby grew up at oriental plazathe brown hard brickcomplex the sprawling thing for immigrantsbut baby didn't know that word yetthe dictionary was for learning about stucco houses in some other placelike morningside? was it britain?baby hadn’t beenshe just read and ate the hot samosas therein johannesburg they tasted like her mother couldmake them.how niceand tiring it was at the muslim tailors’ to figure skateher fingers across slushy velvets, scrabbling sequins, lickflower nectar colors with her eyespractise ballet with the fabric patterns.baby helped her mother remember,to pick new flavors for her bodywatch her stir them up and spitthem out like a childhood languagein a salwar kurta or a churidar sometimes evena sari - orientalplaza had an old smell, like a house left too longso baby wrinkled her noseand grew up in skinny jeans. Artwork by Alison Hoy, "Modern Woman"