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Girls can never have too much face paint.
It fills our bathrooms
Overflowing from our purses
Mascara, foundation, eye shadow,
Eyeliner, lip gloss, lipstick, blush…
The list goes on.
And heaven forbid a girl ever forgets her face paint.
The world would probably end if we women were,
Dare I say it? Natural
For just
One
Day.

I knew a girl once, who never had a man
And when someone asked her why she was always alone, she replied
“I think, therefore I’m single.”
She didn’t wear face paint.
They called her the Traveling Train Wreck
And she was born old.
She was the one that your parents told you never to hang around:
The ‘Bad Seed’.
Sings in the dark
Dances alone
And knows she’s beautiful.

She told me that women were meant to be wild
To run free
We were not supposed to be tamed.
If a man came along that shared our spirit
And would run alongside us
He was worthy.
But we were never meant to be restrained
By the hands that we hold.
Or the lips that we kiss.

For the rest of us
The emotion, sexual, and psychological stereotyping
Began when the doctor stated, “It’s a girl.”
And at that moment
The clock started ticking
Breathing down our backs.

Sometimes when no one’s watching
I remove my face paint
And run wild
But not for long…
Because ‘Women are supposed to behave.’

© 2006