The feminist

i
am
not
a
muse
d

The naïve girl

she hates it when her feet get wet and being scared most of the time.
she wears skirts and a soft expression: she aspires to be full of grace.
she hopes someone is secretly in love with her.
she has strong opinions which she keeps to herself.
she has a recurring dream about crushed flowers.
she carries the scent of that dream: of something evaporating,
of tissue paper; and fragile, momentary anger.

The groovy girl

The groovy girl needs to get her groove back. And fast. And drugs won't do. Not this time. This time it is serious: she is wearing black. Gone are the greens, the orange and oh the fuchsia. A friend suggested she self-publish a slim volume of her poetry. Self-publishing poetry and dressed in black - she would look almost cool. And 'almost cool' is not groovy. What she'd like is the sway in her hips back. That smile on her skin. She'd like to hear the music of her body again. Feel all its colourful sensations. She wants to sparkle and bring on the good vibes. She wants to be tequila and siesta, languid and lush. She wants to be her catlike self again. Now that would be groovy. Like totally.

the moon girl

the moongirl is nostalgic for sunset. she longs for dusk, desires its intensity of vivid, rare colours. every day the moon girl stares into the white eye of the sun from behind the blue curtain of sky. without regard for the pale, the sun looks past her. but she is there...watchful and still as she grows full of dreams.

The girl with blue hair

I must be losing my touch, thought the girl with blue hair. People would usually stop and stare at her unabashedly, eyes widening mouths agape. Some would also point, in a slow-motion distracted manner, the possibility that they might be rude overshadowed by the fact that they’d been rendered speechless. The girl with blue hair did not mind the attention; one could even say that she revelled in it a little, that she did feel a tiny bit proud of her ability to astonish. But these days people hardly look at her – indeed, they don’t seem to notice her at all. They just walk right past her, where she stands selling soft toys in aid of charity.

Nude woman in red armchair

She sits in the quiet way of a milky Sunday afternoon – her face still delicately clothed; her thoughts colourless and clear; and then the naked freedom of her body. She sits like a moment of rain that falls suddenly amidst sunshine. Everything softens around her (the red chair, the light, the brushes, your own loud thoughts). How can you (not) paint her?

The wild girl

Left-wing, left-handed and left to her own devices, the wild girl is always ready to fight for what’s right.

*

The wild girl frequently engages in radical acts such as cutting her own hair, recklessly breaking mirrors, and unleashing the power within, around and beyond. (These events are often connected.)

*

The wild girl carries her body like a revolutionary flag or a new tattoo. She has a music video walk, a runway run. She looks funky and cool in all manner of t-shirts and footwear.

*

The wild girl laughs, sings, cries, farts and thinks out loud. She’s a billboard kind of girl.

*

The wild girl can fearlessly down home-brewed distilled beverages and non-bottled water. She likes her herbal tea the way she likes her food: the hotter, the better. (The same goes for sex, of course.)

*

The words ‘subversive’ and ‘hard-core’ fail as powerful adjectives when applied to the wild girl.

*

The wild girl isn’t actually that wild at all, not in a feral sense at least. All she really wants is to go to Berlin.