Watch Us Rise(3)

I nodded along and pretended I believed the same thing. The next day I bought a bunch of beauty magazines and started to study what I needed to do to be beautiful on the outside.

That was two years ago. A lot has changed since then.

“Hurry up,” my sister, Mia, calls into my room.

“I’m trying, just give me a second!”

“You look fine just the way you are,” she calls back, not even seeing what I’m wearing or how I’ve managed my hair. I have abandoned my intricate routine of gel, comb, mousse, straightening iron, curling iron, and hairspray . . . ?that would totally derail us getting to school on time. Who cares if Jacob Rizer calls me a frizz factory. Screw him.

I kind of like the way I look, and everything feels different and new. I’ve grown into my nose and learned to embrace my big hair. As for my body, I am currently not at war with it, and even though I still have no breasts to speak of, at least I can sometimes go without a bra. Freedom!

I study myself in the mirror one more time and dab concealer around the patch of zits that have decided to accompany me on my first day. I apply midnight-black mascara to my eyes and a blush that’s called Color Me Perfect to my cheeks. Gag.

“Almost there,” I call back, finally deciding on a shirt that says: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-Damental Human Rights. I put on a pair of skinny jeans (ugh, labeling pants with the word “skinny” is completely superficial and against everything I stand for, but still . . .) and a floppy straw hat that I got over the summer. Not perfect, but not horrific either.

“I’ve been ready since seven thirty,” Mia brags, swinging into my room. Of course she’s been ready for hours. Mia wakes up ready. She’s a senior. We’re only a year apart, so we’re practically required to be close, but since we’re so different, we get along pretty well. Mia is just confident. She’s the captain of the varsity basketball team and wears her hair cropped short. “You look good, Chels—very feminist-y.”

“You both look great just the way you are, and you’re both going to be very late to school if you don’t pull it together,” my mom says, peeking her head in. “Could you please be on time for your first day?”

“Yes, yes, we’re on it.” I say.

“And remember,” Mom finishes, “it’s what’s on the inside that matters. But you two also look very good on the outside. Now get moving, and try not to focus so much on how you look,” she says, walking out.

I grab my book bag and journal, and one of my poems falls out.

Mia grabs it. “This new?” she asks, starting to read.

“Kinda new. I started it over the summer. Figured it would be a good reminder for the year.”

Mia reads it out loud.

Advice to Myself

from Chelsea to Chelsea

Be reckless when it matters most.

Messy incomplete. Belly laugh. Love language.

Be butterfly stroke in a pool of freestylers.

Fast & loose.

You don’t need all the right moves all the time.

You just need limbs wild. Be equator. Lava.

Ocean floor, the neon of plankton. Be unexpected.

The rope they lower to save the other bodies.

Be your whole body. Every hiccup & out of place.

Elastic girl. Be stretch moldable.

Be funk flexible. Free fashionable. Go on.

Be hair natural. Try & do anything, woman.

What brave acts like on your hips.

Be cocky at school. Have a fresh mouth.

Don’t let them tell you what’s prim & proper.

Not your ladylike. Don’t be their ladylike.

Their dress-up girl. Not their pretty.

Don’t be their bottled. Saturated. Dyed. Squeezed.

SPANXed. Be gilded. Gold. Papyrus.

A parakeet’s balk & flaunt. Show up uninvited.

Know what naked feels like.

Get the sweetness. Be the woman you love.

Be tight rope & expanse. Stay hungry.

Be a mouth that needs to get fed. Ask for it.

Stay alert—lively—alive & unfettered.

Full on it all. Say yes when it matters.

Be dragonfish. Set all the fires.

Be all the woman they warned you against being.

Be her anyway.



She laughs and pulls me into a hug.

“What?” I ask, pulling away.

“I love your mind, Chelsea Spencer. I’m excited we get one more year in high school together.”

“Me too. Just give me one more second,” I say, grabbing a stack of beauty magazines from my nightstand. “These are for poetry research. I have a ton of new ideas for my club this afternoon, and I want to share them with my crew.” I leaf through a copy, pausing at an article about keeping your hot bikini body through the holiday season, before stuffing them into my bag. “I mean, I just feel like our club needs to get more focused and serious. What’s the point of writing if we have nothing important to say, right?”

I grab my phone to call Jasmine.

“Hey,” Jasmine says, “are you already at school?”

“No, I’m still home. Mini fashion crisis. Don’t judge me. Are you excited?” I ask.

“Yes,” Jasmine says. “We have so much to catch up on.”

“It has been too long since I’ve seen you! I can’t wait to share my new poems and this essay I’ve been working on. And I have a new piece you’ll love. We are gonna totally shut down the patriarchal systems of oppression this year!” I can see Mia rolling her eyes and pushing me to get it together.