Handsome Daughters

Handsome Daughters
by Mackenzie Roark
Handsome daughters have it hard.
Always grinning with their gaggles of godlike guys and girls, cheeks chipping away because of smile lines and bright big eyes. (cackle cackle cackle) Never having to tackle that bright big Sad and Lonely, or ever being the only human in the room. Never being Lonely enough to write out of spite for the bright big world that’s made you insane, which is a shame, because being tame isn’t too much fun, now is it?
Handsome daughters have it hard.
They’re painting, always pasting faces, the same ways, the same days wasting wasting wasting away. *Kissy faces* with their sisters, drinking little cups of tea on the balcony, waiting for some sort of abstract Meaning to come along and save them. They’re hairbrushing, morning rushing, fingertouching every God forsaken piece of attractive clothing, always loathing the amount of ATTENTION they think they get. And yet. They loath a life without spectators, Jealous Haters!, HeyDay waiters that wish and hope and pray that that their faces one day won’t be so plain.
Handsome daughters have it hard.
They never save their loving for the God-willing lovers. Instead, Egoshovers are stealing secret kisses under covers while talkin’ (without walkin’) about promises unreal. Faux lovers. Like little toy soldiers. Like Castaside letters. Those Couldabeenbetters. Who fall asleep on foreign pillows with mascara sludge and smear and slime and grime and they see the time is six A.M. and realize that the moment is very much a vapor.
Handsome daughters have it hard.
Playing prey to the predators, pray sometimes to Lord Above for someone to ask them about middle names and mothers and such. And yet. again again again, all the guys trap all the girls and they march together with their hairsprayed curls and heirloom pearls away from the beauty that you gave when you were exposed. When you were stripped down, hair dripped down wet and sweat blushing under your arms from that escaped moment without your mirror to peer into. Beauty from when you forgot that you exist, and you put your phone down for almost half a second to watch the rain collect on the ledge by the shed you used to occupy before the days of painting each eye with crushed insect bones and baby animal fur makeup. And you’re sure that this is how a lady should act.
Handsome daughters have it hard.
Time to take those family Christmas card pictures at whitelight studios and smile and pitylaugh, just to prove to all the kith and kin how pretty and polished Polly-President-Of-Her-Class and Peter-Princeton-In-The-Fall are. Far from the grease and grit and grime in the skin and cell and shell of the shoeless kids across town whose hair isn’t pinned up in pretty poufs. Whose pants aren’t perfectly pressed, because mothers pick poison over daughters, and fathers are never really there. Whose lives are flowing over with fingernail scratches and burned up cigarette matches, because oppression latches on, without invitation.
Handsome daughters have it hard.
Living in a dream where their tragic pristine parties don’t go as planned, and and and no one understands. You poor, hardworking girl, you’ll probably land a fashion journaling job across town and have to drive through sketchy neighborhoods with your doors extra locked and windows extra rolled up. Because God forbid you make contact with a dirty world outside your tiny champagne bubble way of life. Because God has placed you in such a handsome family! Good thing, too, because how could you function without Mom, drinking her poison alone in the study, or Dad who was never really there. You’re just too different from those shoeless kids you pass on your way to work! You’re just too refined! You may have fingernail scratches hidden under cashmere, and all the cigarette matches are in their proper dumpsters of disposal, but your pants are so perfectly pressed and that hair is forever in a pretty pouf. And oppression stays far away, because your house is a safe haven only
for the Saved and Cleanly Shaved.
Handsome daughters— those hot tub bathing, glow-stick raving, Polaroid saving, misbehaving girls in their light-up mirror world— have it just so God-damned hard.