Too much

Dear young chickadee’ays,
A girl holds within her a burning fount of energy. Other people try to tell her she shouldn’t listen to all that music at top-volume anymore shouldn’t get tattoos shouldn’t let her real feelings show so hard shouldn’t disclose so much personal information shouldn’t open up up up so easily easily easily should work

to tone down that laugh of hers that she’s too old, now, to be out dancing at two a.m. should do something about that acne do something about that little pot belly, maybe reconsider her preference of beer over hard liquor maybe reconsider her Saturday bagel/coffee-w/-cream ritual because it’s in these little things all these little things that her faults lie so just pay attention to the little things to every little thing she secretly loves best about herself.

Young gals? Look. That cool old blue-haired lady down the street? With the abandon in her cackle that you can hear from your porch on still afternoons when she stops to talk with neighbors who walk their dogs by her house? Who goes braless and doesn’t give a fuck who notices? Has lived as long as she did for a reason. And that reason wasn’t worrying about laughing too loud.
Ever.

Love,
Alice