On a page...

I saw blue skies and bright, colorful cars zip past me on a page when I took my first breath. The sky danced with light from an imaginary sun. We all seemed to be living through the colors. That's how we knew whether it was morning or not. We all walked aimlessly and did everything the same way until there was a moment where we were important.

Me? I am the woman model of modest breast, modest waist, modest hips with dips in all the right places. The viewers spot me as an attractive and clearly feminine kind of woman as built by the Creator. The one of stereotypical desires. My lines are always drawn the same. They are always so much the same that I often wonder what real women look like. My oval eyes, small nose, and modest brows, the slight heart-shaped/ovular face they draw me all sit in my head. The thing about my eyes though is that they always have to have some wonder. I don't know what I am wondering about, but it is the the same wonder of cats or small children. I always see our eyes drawn similarly. The Creator barely deviates from my figure even when they create other characters. More times than not my hair is blonde, not platinum though but natural enough so my usual light skin isn't washed. These days my hair comes with a slight wave which I enjoy. When I am exotified to be a spy or alien, I get an extreme hair color which is always fun. It's always one that makes my costume stand out. Sometimes my skin is darker, but never darkest. My nose stays the same, my eyes do too. My lips are always slender as my neck and frame are also. I am pretty sure they never think about my feet, as they are usually points. No singular toes or a decipherable shoe, just points usually.

When they draw me on the page, it is with the combination of these attributes that I breathe. It is what the Creator has made me. The same happens as they type out my descriptions on sketch pads, casting calls, screenplays, and movie scripts. These combinations of descriptive words activate me. As I watch (what I believe are my neighbors) walk past me, I realize I am walking too. Where? I have no clue, only the Creator knows. This time I have a cute purse, and flats. I enjoy those more than the heels. This time I am in a more urban area, I do not prefer those as it tends to come with...men. Just as I thought, a man in the distance. I will surely bump into him. He will give me fake apologies and masked grins. The Creator and the audience will like it. I look around to the more feminine figures and see that they are not quite drawn like me. The others are rounder in other places on their bodies, others are darker in other places of their skin, their hair not as long or as detailed as mine. They are all scribbles on the page to make this thing more real, more like life. They are the noise on whatever canvas this is today which means I am the main character. The focus of the Creator in this moment. As we all bustle to nowhere and the details of my lines grow more complicated, I am given words and actions.

I am always given a man. It used to be a man to feel the backside of my given curvy lines. I usually smile in these things and when I would get the chance to grimace it was only for laughs. That was also a time when I was given uncomfortable heels to wear and cigarettes to smoke in strange places. I was given babies, and bows in my hair. My vocabulary was full of “dears” and ``honeys.” I was to slap that man or embrace him. There was rarely ever an “in between.” This is also all we had even when given marriage and kids oftentimes. These two interactions were all we had.

There was a time, not too long ago, where I was given a man to present some quirkiness to get him to fall in love with me even if it was by accident. It's exhausting. He gives me shoulder squeezes for assurance, lies, and picnics. This was a time where I was constantly erased and drawn again only to be erased again. I had too many things I liked and too many of the clothes were too varied like the men. I have to be “different” than the other girls and the type of girl he would fall for at the same time. Do I still wear dresses and bows? Do I wear sneakers and wear lip gloss? Do I spend most of my scenes looking upward and smiling or can I grimace? All of the answers are yes. Do the other girls have this problem? No.

It grows lonely on the page as I am the first or last to be drawn. While everyone here experiences the imagination of the Creator of places near, far, and never before seen. I am to wait to see who I am to be and be beside. I want to know the women on the other page as they race to get groceries. I want to walk into a store instead of waiting for the length of my crop top to be figured out. I want to see what other men are doing that don't warrant for them to be slapped.

With movies, it can be even worse. I am assigned lines that don't agree with my lines by the Creator. I am always the last to arrive. I am always the last to arrive at the party on the arm of the man. That is when I am the object of desire but for some reason I never get the guy. I am always last to hear the whispers of an envious friend and never have any friends. I am always last to someone's interest while holding everyone’s interest. It is also usually the point. Then I am always the first to bear the clapback of an offended woman or be the offended woman but drawn with even softer rounder eyes and an even rounder face. I am always first to be tended to and shushed into the vanity of a bedroom boudoir or handheld mirror. Either way, I am never too long in the shadows left alone to eat a hamburger. I am never putting the shoe on the woman with an impeccable sense of humor unless that's the point. When it comes to the other women drawn, if it's me or them on the page, I get a purpose. They don't always do. Even worse, the purpose is usually a man.

So, here I am today, standing on this sidewalk whacking this man on the head with my purse and shaking my fist as I heard an audience of the Creator laugh at his “wackiness,” I continued my vapid path. Then, not too soon after, I breathe life into a new scene, checking my lips in the mirror in a puffed pink coat, purring out catty lines to my mini copy-mes that don't have nearly the caliber of wardrobe, makeup, or hairspray that I have been given. The audience can still tell that I am their inspiration; not just in spirit, but in figure. As they come through the doors, I see them and they see me. Their eyes drawn hurt to the level of detail, purpose I have given. I hurt, too. deep in the thickness of my lines but I give the words given by the Creator. Now, I am in a new cartoon, I am a princess, a superhero princess. This time my eyes get to glow green, everything else remains the same. Still thin and small-featured. My darker-haired or darker-skinned, or wider featured, or rounder bodied feminine counterparts plot to steal my land from me, actually they usually work for the copy-me that looks more like me than the rest of them. I conquer anything and everyone, of course, staring at a darker me. Later, in what feels like a fashion show, I feel my lines drawn and appear doubly across the pages of fashion designers as I wear haute couture from hat to hairline to hip. I have the same figure with "different" models. The makeup lays on the same features too. I see my other co-workers less than usual and my copy-me’s more often. It's dizzying.

The thing is that sometimes, in recent years, but still very rarely, I appear on the page and am erased. These times it is not because I need a different outfit or poutier lip, but just erased. It is terrifying; don't get me wrong. No one wants to be erased, but it is on those pages that I find myself in a different world even though I have worked for so long and have seen many. These days there are other characters with more detail than me and do not look like me as much. They have more scenes and more lines. They live on their pages longer than I do with even more purpose. That never used to happen. This is the first time I wonder if the Creator has changed. While that scares me, It is through those feminine figures that some parts of me get to live different lives than I am used to. It is through those lives that I do the most living. The way that it has always been is that I am always given drama. I am always given a man. I am always given sex. I am always given a ring. I am always given lip gloss. I can be given more.

Over the last few weeks, I have been appearing a bit more differently. Sometimes I have a wider head, a higher forehead. Sometimes I have a rounder belly, I like those most. I like it especially when they call it a “fupa.” I have been appearing to have curlier hair and plump lips. One time, I even had body hair. I am not just in high school bathrooms or high scale parties. I am in car garages with tools in hand. I am at construction sites. I am working on a railroad. When I am in the kitchen, I am yelling at the bustles of lines around me. When I am on the street, I am opening a business for breakfast. These days are different. I am given a job. I am given lines of briefcases and words of opportunity. I am given dreams and responsibility by a new Creator.

This in turn makes the heels hurt a little less because they feel like a choice. The lipstick isn't a character enhancer but a small detail. My mannerisms do not mirror those of children. My knowledge extends and expands now. My walks on a sidewalk or into the party on the arm of a man are now far and in between. Now I am in the midst of women and of stories about women. Sometimes the stories have no men. Sometimes when there are men they are not there to be with me or near me in the storyline. I get to do other things instead. I get to furrow my brow and drink more. I get to exist in stories where there's no romance or romantic violence. This is what makes me feel like a choice, what the Mona Lisa must have felt like.

Now, as I disappear from the sidewalk, it takes me a long time to breathe again. I notice that I am not, nor anything else, being drawn. I notice that the stories have stopped. The next time I take another breath is at a familiar beginning of a story, as I am placed in a large hoop skirt and corseted bodice with one singular curl in my ponytail that I feel my lines all over again. This drawn figure feels like one of the first times I noticed myself. This was one of the first established identities I have had on film or page as a blonde, tall, skinny woman, with those curves again. The most prominent image for those last few millennia as told by The Creator. I am in the kitchen cooking dinner for what my lines feel like is the eightieth time, but this is not fun. I have little purpose again after seeing so many new things. Here there are no shades of skin, no curves and dips in people, or to their words. Everyone looks and sounds like me. As I stir the pot, I feel the eyes watching our story again but from the beginning. It feels like the Creator started over again. It feels like the Creator never intended on the feminine form being free.

The audience laughs at my grimace as the man given to me gives a heart-shaped locket to my hands.