by Dessin Gabby (she/her)
Senior, Springbrook High School
I love dresses,
I love the long flowy ones,
The big puffy ones,
The sparkly ones,
And the polka dot ones,
But the older I get,
The more they’ve changed,
All I see now is skin tight dresses,
So tight your skin can’t breathe,
I continue with my love for dresses,
And I buy one to feel free,
Excited to show off my new dress,
I wear it to school,
Although the dress was tight,
I felt unstoppable and cool,
Until I walked down the hallway,
And noticed something different,
“Looking good,”
That’s all I hear,
They stare at me up and down,
Not considering how it makes me feel,
Their eyes take in every inch of my body,
Until I want to disappear,
I felt uncomfortable,
And wanted to get away,
But I eventually ignored it,
And went along with my day,
I walked down the hallway until I heard,
“Why you wearing that hunny?”
She questioned my every word,
“You know you can’t be wearing that!”
These words instantly felt like betray,
“You got your whole body out!”
I didn’t know what to say,
“I’m gonna have to dress code you!”
Please don’t let these words be true,
“You’re distracting your classmates,”
“Giving them the wrong idea of you!”
And there it was,
The thing that she really wanted to say,
My body was her issue,
Not the dress I had on that day,
I never wore a tight dress again,
Or at least that’s what she’d want me to say,
She calls them invitations,
I call them beautiful cliches,
And use them to show the power each woman portrays.
Author's Note
As girls grow up, many things around them start to lose their innocence and become something completely different than what they grew up with. For me, that thing that lost its innocence was dresses. This is a poem about how I took that innocence back.