malleable, like metal.

my preoccupation with past conversations must reflect this week and the weekend which was so full of them. i couldn't seem to stop talking talking talking. sometimes i wanted to, so badly. i couldn't believe the things flying from between my lips, sugary sweet at times but mostly like lemons picked straight from the tree. i was - at times - ornery. i was - at times - downright cruel.

she says, "i have this problem where i speak without thinking, so stupid shit just comes out, and i think, what did i just say? does that even make sense?"

i tell her i have the same sort of problem, variations on a theme, which is sensible as the two of us in personality are just that - variations on a theme. the same girl only sharper or softer, depending. "the difference is," i say, "i blurt out stuff i should keep to myself." it's true; i tend to hit full disclosure early on and just keep running. it's a symptom - i want people to know me.

over the past year, and in the last six months especially, i have been struggling with the concept of woman. what one really is, what one really should be, where those two intersect, how to become one without going insane. i'm 24 and i don't want to be a kid anymore.

he says, "you just seemed really nice and friendly and cute," with a shrug and i wobble back and forth with wanting to let my knees buckle from desire and wanting to smack him, this man i barely know. my eyes water, the sting of indecision.

i said, "well, i am all those things," and settled on desire over ire. it isn't his fault, not really. i have a certain way about me that i can't help - big brown eyes, round pink cheeks, white skin and pursed red lips. when i student taught the first year mandarin classes my first year in college, the professor made the class choose my chinese name for the year. they rifled furiously through their dictionaries and settled on wa wa lian which means precisely "baby doll face."

this i have resigned myself to - i'll probably always look young. men will forever be attracted to some sense of wide-eyed, innocent fragility. it was far from the last time he would call me cute, and each time i would swallow my irritation in favor of flattery, knowing that phenotype is phenotype and he would not be intentionally hurtful. men will never look at me like they look at, say, Dita Von Teese.

still, somewhere i have to learn to reconcile this unintentional near-infantilism with adulthood. and i don't really know where to begin.

to be continued...