Ripe with Anxiousness

In 1988 we tiptoed around the line between girlhood and womanhood with tear-filled eyes and broad adore-me smiles. We curled and teased and scrunched our hair while layers of grape-scented hairspray lacquered our bathroom countertops.

Our bedroom walls were shiny with posters of boy-band chests and bad-boy grins hiding unicorns and floral wallpaper. Our mothers fought us, our little sisters wanted to be us, our fathers avoided us.

We hid behind crossed arms, our lips drowning in strawberry gloss. We were bubble gum, pink and sweet and ripe with anxiousness. We devoured crushes like candy and got high on Baby Soft perfume and Noxzema.

Our breasts were trained under watchful eyes, while our budding plumpness blindsided us. We stared at popcorn ceilings, listened to mix-tapes of romantic ballads, sobbed with thoughts of being unnoticed and unloved.

We imagined being a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, a journalist in New York City, a doctor in the Peace Corps. We wanted to change the world but didn’t know how to do it wearing our rhinestone denim jacket.

We were angry that everyone else seemed so sure of themselves, so eager to tell us what we wanted. Our childhood lightness darkened with hatred for everything.

We tested fate through the numerology of names mated together, revealed it in paper fortune tellers we created in the homeroom. We didn’t really want to marry Tommy from second period or have three kids or change our last name. We were searching for ourselves.

Need more great reads? Check out these short stories and flash fiction works from the MockingOwl Roost staff and contributors.

• For Sale
• The Gun from the Unicorn
• A Silent Hello, an Unsaid Goodbye
• The Boy at the Back of the Room
• Hanson Opperknockity

Melanie Maggard

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Melanie Maggard is a flash and poetic prose writer who loves dribbles and drabbles. She has published in Cotton Xenomorph, The Dribble Drabble Review, X-R-A-Y Magazine, Five Minute Lit, and others.

Find more on Melanie’s website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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