Barbie Doll by Marge Pierce
Barbie Doll
Everyone gets asked the same question when they’re taken in: “Do you know why you’re here?” For someone like me, after what I did, it seems like a waste of words. But that’s how people are I suppose; we are always talking just to hear ourselves. If people would take the time to think about their words before vomiting them onto one another, maybe we all would be better people. People would have an entirely different form of speech. We would all know the difference between what should be thought and what should be said. We wouldn’t have words that hit like bullets. And maybe, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I always used the charts in my mother’s Cosmopolitan that would tell you whether or not a guy is into you, if your good at sex, your personal style, or whatever that month was trying to sell. You answer the questions, and they guide you to your results at the end. The next question is dependent on the answer to the previous one. That’s what they do here: They subconsciously follow the path of questions to the end result- guilty or not guilty. I made it easy for them. I answered yes. I know why I’m here. Following their internal chart, they will ask, “Why?” It doesn’t seem right for such a complex question to be only three letters long. I wanted to make my answer just as simple. I wanted it all to make sense to everyone, no explanations, and no word vomit. It quickly became clear this wasn’t going to happen. Since I’m in this box for life, I might as well start at the beginning. My parents were the unfiltered version of beauty and the beast. I was never one to believe in fairytales. My mother won Miss California. She was soon to be Miss America until my fetus crushed those dreams. My father bought and sold hundreds of industries, my mother, and every other woman he craved. Needless to say, he didn’t stick around to see me arrive. I burned the one picture I had of him shortly before I arrived here. He was the one who gave me the fat nose on
Everyone gets asked the same question when they’re taken in: “Do you know why you’re here?” For someone like me, after what I did, it seems like a waste of words. But that’s how people are I suppose; we are always talking just to hear ourselves. If people would take the time to think about their words before vomiting them onto one another, maybe we all would be better people. People would have an entirely different form of speech. We would all know the difference between what should be thought and what should be said. We wouldn’t have words that hit like bullets. And maybe, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I always used the charts in my mother’s Cosmopolitan that would tell you whether or not a guy is into you, if your good at sex, your personal style, or whatever that month was trying to sell. You answer the questions, and they guide you to your results at the end. The next question is dependent on the answer to the previous one. That’s what they do here: They subconsciously follow the path of questions to the end result- guilty or not guilty. I made it easy for them. I answered yes. I know why I’m here. Following their internal chart, they will ask, “Why?” It doesn’t seem right for such a complex question to be only three letters long. I wanted to make my answer just as simple. I wanted it all to make sense to everyone, no explanations, and no word vomit. It quickly became clear this wasn’t going to happen. Since I’m in this box for life, I might as well start at the beginning. My parents were the unfiltered version of beauty and the beast. I was never one to believe in fairytales. My mother won Miss California. She was soon to be Miss America until my fetus crushed those dreams. My father bought and sold hundreds of industries, my mother, and every other woman he craved. Needless to say, he didn’t stick around to see me arrive. I burned the one picture I had of him shortly before I arrived here. He was the one who gave me the fat nose on