What They Don't Know About You

Older women will always treat you like shit.
You see them stiffen as you walk by.
The way they look down at you through their designer glasses
casting shadows on your body, stark, sleek, slim,
unlucky and invaluable in comparison to theirs
which drip heavy with eighteen facets like a chandelier,
the Upper East Side manifestation of more than one alimony battle.
They roll their eyes at the heaviness of your heels
and you feel guilty but don't know why.
You keep wishing for the light to change so you
could cross the street and walk away from their world;
they haven't been south of Fifty-third Street in twenty years.

Maybe it's not just old women, because
you moved to a place this big in the hopes you could disappear
or at least be out of earshot from all the cackle
so many blonde sluts make about your breasts.
You remember being twelve and aching for high school to begin
when everyone else would start growing and stop talking.
You're still waiting.
Sometimes you consider just hacking 'em both off and donating
them somewhere like the Insecure A-Cup Foundation.

When you used to waitress you approached the table with a smile.
The guy would look so grateful while the wife glared at him
over her chicken Caesar salad. She would leave for the car first
and he would apologize when you came over to bus the plates.
He made sure to take out his wallet before you left so
you would notice the thirty percent tip. You can't help it.
Your hips whistle mistress when you walk at a pitch so high
only other bitches hear it. The sound only gets louder
when you try to ignore it. Ambulance sirens blare when
you wear that raincoat which hangs like a parachute.
You've wanted since forever to look as ugly as you feel.

You took the feminist theory classes. You read in the Vagina Monologues
and sold chocolate pussy pops afterwards.
You saw Margaret Atwood speak.
Every time you pick up The Heidi Chronicles Scoop sounds
a little bit sweeter and you end up crying a little bit harder.
None of that helps, though, not when you can slip the teller
a twenty and your Student I.D. and get an orchestra seat in exchange,
wedged between two old bats who had to pay full-price and sit apart.
They hate you for not knowing how they lived, how it used to be
when everyone stayed home vacuuming in heels and pearls.
And yet, maybe they have the right to think what they want
about you, Miss Third-Wave Feminist Straight Outta College,
who learned about women's role in society through a Jean Kilbourne video.

But still, there must, there must be something constant across the years,
sweaty palms, trembling knees, wearing too much perfume,
cursing a mute telephone, snagging your stockings
the day of an interview, spilling coffee on a new winter coat,
or even pretending to fall asleep after the buttons have been unbuttoned
while he breathes warm against your neck and it takes hours
because you keep going over every anxious clumsy motion.
They don't think of that when they look at you.
Instead they flick their eyes up and down your ensemble
and file you away in their mind under some antiquated insult
like tart and all you can do is sigh and convince yourself
they must have been menopausal since birth.