tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334769108532243857.post8872894823061799949..comments2010-12-20T01:02:58.997-08:00Comments on The Scarlet List: Long Term GirlScarletlisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00117031517603264829noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334769108532243857.post-40507344477474400172010-11-01T16:20:14.075-07:002010-11-01T16:20:14.075-07:00What about if you're twenty five, single, with...What about if you're twenty five, single, with no prospects and still prefer sweats?Fatemehhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01438000784675562663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334769108532243857.post-78904073373973652002010-10-25T16:40:44.863-07:002010-10-25T16:40:44.863-07:00Wear yourself.
“Perfect Dress” by Marisa de los...Wear yourself. <br /><br />“Perfect Dress” by Marisa de los Santos<br /><br />It’s here in a student’s journal, a blue confession<br />in smudged, erasable ink: “I can’t stop hoping<br />I’ll wake up, suddenly beautiful,” and isn’t it strange<br />how we want it, despite all we know? To be at last<br /><br />the girl in the photography, cobalt-eyed, hair puddling<br />like cognac, or the one stretched at the ocean’s edge,<br />curved and light-drenched, more like a beach than<br />the beach. I confess I have longed to stalk runways,<br /><br />leggy, otherworldly as a mantis, to balance a head<br />like a Fabergé egg on the longest, most elegant neck.<br />Today in the checkout line, I saw a magazine<br />claiming to know “How to Find the Perfect Dress<br /><br />for that Perfect Evening,” and I felt the old pull, flare<br />of the pilgrim’s twin flames, desire and faith. At fifteen,<br />I spent weeks at the search. Going from store to store,<br />hands thirsty for shine, I reached for polyester satin,<br /><br />machine-made lace, petunia- and Easter egg-colored,<br />brilliant and flammable. Nothing haute about this<br />couture but my hopes for it, as I tugged it on<br />and waited for my one, true body to emerge.<br /><br />(Picture the angel inside uncut marble, articulation<br />of wings and robes poised in expectation of release.)<br />What I wanted was ordinary miracle, the falling away<br />of everything wrong. Silly maybe or maybe<br /><br />I was right, that there’s no limit to the ways eternity<br />suggests itself, that one day I’ll slip into it, say<br />floor-length plum charmeuse. Someone will murmur,<br />“She is sublime,” will be precisely right, and I will step,<br /><br />with incandescent shoulders, into my perfect evening.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04996597118408237576noreply@blogger.com