To Realize a Fantasy

Vanessa Raney
MS Student
Environmental Management
University of Maryland University College
            AND
AA Student
Economics
Frederick Community College
E-mail:  vraney709@myfcc.frederick.edu

Depending on where I am,
I’m either obviously
white or obliviously white
despite my brown eyes/hair
and naturally pink cheeks;
or, if one’s clever enough,
my facial features,
which will never conform
unless I choose to be
masked by hair dyes,
make-up and contacts,
or manipulated by technology
to erase the extra baggage of fat
and reshape these structural defects –
oh, but this requires money
that I don’t have,
but, worse, it would mean
an earlier invitation to death,
which might absorb the shocks
to my body or to my mind;
it can be terrifying, after all,
to realize a fantasy you’ve never fit
since the image is always changing
even if the expectations never will.

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