"Exhibiting You" - Story

Build Me Up Pretty


By: Rei Thompson
Submitted: 06/19/2008

Build me up pretty.

Build me up so much that I don’t even turn around
To see if it’s your whistling or one of my silly
Female friends who just wants to cheer me up from the
Morning day blues.

Build me up pretty beyond the point that
I can even see myself in the long line of girls
Waiting at the MAC makeup counter to purchase
The liners and sticks and glosses meant to turn you up
And on.

But then again, why should I make you do it?
Build me up pretty, that is.
Maybe I should dig you down into the
Dirt where your historic mind lies,
In the gutter of the misogynist rhetor-
ic which your father
And his father shoveled on your battered corpse of
Strained intellectual thoughts.

So sad it is, that I thought for two solid years that it was
You who needed to build me up pretty
When in actuality mine own eyes could not see the
Deep, deep need for me to build you up pretty instead.

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