Always depending on the light. It’s the same with your hair. The same color as your eyes, if not just a bit lighter. In the sun, the highlights in your hair like to play. Sometimes you like the soft shades of your hair when you look in the mirror and the sun’s shining, or the light’s bright enough. You like it when your eyes tinge red, the way the red flashes as you move; you think it’s sensual, makes you feel naughty. When you were in high school, you came up with a play you titled The Devil’s Daughter. In it, the devil rapes an angel and the angel, who can’t carry a child, takes the seed and gives it to a special couple who’ve always wanted kids. The girl grows up faced with the devil for the first time; she has powers, can make the storms happen. She has to choose between the good part of her and her father. You asked, is it wrong to be good and bad?

Why is the devil always seen as bad? Why must there be a yin and yang struggle? You say the two parts of us, the mental and the sexual, weren’t meant to be apart. If angels belong to the heavens, and the devil to hell, why can’t earth be the conjoining of these two spheres? You asked so many odd questions growing up. You’ve pretty much worked it out that the devil will not go up against God during the Armageddon. You figure that if the devil started out being an angel, he can’t change the nature of what he is. Maybe the devil was sent to earth to warn man.

Today while you were finishing your meatball sandwich from Subways®, you looked out the window and noticed that the purple flowers in the bush in front of the minivan are the same shade as the minivan. From the set of your eyes, you were thinking, “Did the purple from the minivan bleed into the flowers, or did the flowers bleed into the minivan?” You might be surprised, but you’re really easy to read. Your love of nature and your soul as an artist, these are the things that flash across your face when you behold something for the first time. That’s what people mean about your eyes (and I’m sure they’ve told you this): you reflect the world outside.

You, on the other hand, always seem to be inside of something. So the questions that form inside your brain, they reflect what you see. There are times when I want to know, what do you see when you look at me? Am I like the others, a disappointment? You disappoint so easily. It seems nothing is good enough for you. You always want more. Until this year, you were used to getting what you wanted. But then, you never really did ask for much. There was a time when you actually shopped for nice things; one shopping trip could easily get into the $300-$500 figures, if not more. It always depended on where you shopped, what you wanted. You outgrew that when you realized that there were people actually struggling, people who couldn’t afford even one outfit at the cheap prices. Of course, you needed good shoes, but that was different.

When you told people where you got your nice clothes, you got wide-eyed looks. You never really thought about it. What your mom spent for you was cheap compared to what others spent on their clothes; some people go up to the tens of thousands easily. Later you stopped going to some of the select stores, except when it came to your bras and shoes. Even then, a $30 dress on sale from $79.99 was still a lot of money for some people. The least expensive dress that you own was $29.99. Your favorite mustard yellow coat, the one you don’t have anymore, was over $100. The coat you own now was a little cheaper, but still around $100. The dress pants you threw away ranged from $80 to $100 each; you always left with at least three pairs per visit.

For panties, you insist on Jockey for Her®, because you like the way these fit best; they’re also made of cotton, which you like. You wear Hanes® and Fruit-of-the-Loom® t-shirts designed for men because they have larger sizes, fit better around your large breasts, advertise V-necks, and, what you don’t say, because the idea of “wearing a man” appeals to you. Even better, you like that you can wear these t-shirts as regular shirts and as night shirts. For some reason, however, you got into going around topless in your apartment; you like it better this way. I know it’s because you have no one to tell what you to wear anymore. It’s true your mom outgrew that habit, but that doesn’t keep her from telling you that you walk around looking “like a bag lady.”

It’s also true that for almost a year you’ve stopped living with your mom. There were times before that when you didn’t live with your mom, mostly during the summers as a young girl and for almost a whole year when you were not yet of age to be officially recognized as a teenager; there were also the overnight stays you took. I know you haven’t changed much, if at all. You still do things your way, the consequences be damned. Even with everything you’ve been through this year, you’re still you. Somewhere, though, you lost some of your edge. I have confidence in you, however. I know you will sharpen that edge and come out the way you were.

You say you haven’t changed. But you’re struggling so hard to break through from all the injustices you’ve had to confront, you can’t see how you’ve changed. What happened to the girl who could face anything, but when she falls in love, can’t do anything but run away from him? So you told him how you felt, but you’re still running. What happened to the girl who was ready to take the consequences for whatever she did impulsively, but can’t bring herself to kiss him? You want to tell me he’s a shallow, insensitive lying jerk, but you’re afraid to face him on it? Why do you run so, little girl? When you liked a guy, you were so bold. Now you run so fast.

Even you with all your rules. You said, “I’m never going to fall in love.” You said, “I’m never going to get married and have kids.” You said so many things, but I heard you not that long ago when you said, “I fell in love with this guy, but he wants nothing to do with me.” You said, “I actually thought about marrying him, about having his kids.” You who said you wanted none of these things were actually thinking about it! What kind of guy is he that he could twist you around like that? You, who for however long denied that you were a feminist because when you thought of feminists, you thought of lesbians, but you weren’t that. Nor were you a bisexual, crossgender-crosser, anything except a heterosexual; you even know when you were confirmed in your sexuality. Finally you name yourself a feminist and you’re ready to give up the things you said women had to give up to be a feminist? Tell me, what kind of feminist are you now?