When I was small, my mom told me

being pretty didn’t matter.
And that’s what I told little kindergartener Ally
(who had her teddy bear


clutched tightly between sticky fingers)
and who laughed, and told me

people don’t like ugly girls.

I didn’t believe her, until fourth grade
When the new boy


(with long fingernails and long wavy hair)
told me to tell Ally that he liked her.
and I asked him

Why

do you like her
And he looked at me


(like I was a small child )
And told me

because she’s pretty


And that’s when I realized that

There is only so much love the world

And pretty people are the first in line.


So when my 6th grade teacher asked
what I wanted to be when I grew up
I said


(as I looked at the boy with bright red hair and perfect teeth)

Pretty
And when she asked why, I told her

There is only so much love in the world

And pretty people are the first in line.



And that’s why by 8th grade

I was Van Gogh


I painted my face with careful precision, I spent hours and emerged looking “natural”

I was Houdini


I pushed things up and I tucked things in and I sucked things back until I was perfect

And I stopped eating pizza on Saturdays


with my mom and little brother
Because

There’s only so much love in the world,

And pretty people are the fist in line.



And in 9th grade, when the boy


(with hair that was like sunlight and the eyelashes of an angel)
Still went for Ally,
I cried in my room, and I tried even harder, because

There’s only so much love in the world,

And pretty people are the first in line.


But by 10th grade,
when getting ready in the morning was like

painting on thin wax paper

that was about



to




rip
and I saw the carcass in the mirror

with its perfectly powdered face

and its impeccably lined lips
I realized that

There is only so much happiness in the world

And the people who don’t eat cake or carbs and pluck their brows every other week

Are the
last
in line.