"This is my body, and I can make it do things. I can make it spin, flip, fly."
I just finished a book called Dare Me. It's about American cheerleading, kind of, about the darkness in the so-called All-American Girl, about the sinister undertones of how terrifying it is to be a teenage girl. These girls grow up too fast, they're cynical and detached, and they are hard as nails and too good for the world around them.
I hated myself for so long, hated being a girl, that it's hard not to put girls who are aware of their own worth on a pedestal now. These girls are like that. Even at their most evil, I want to worship them in the way they worship themselves, all glitter and sequins and spray-on tans. In my head I can wipe away the violence and eating disorders and cruelty because oh, God, are they beautiful.
Then I remember that they are just children, and I'm horrified to realize that I know girls just like this, girls who are much older than they should be, using sex as a weapon because they know sex is what makes the world go around.
They would be lovely (they are lovely) but they are heartbreakingly sad.
"If it hadn't been what it was, it would've been beautiful."
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