The
mating call of
America's brightest and best and most
desirable girls-next-door.
Float around on the summer breeze one lazy Saturday night, watching from afar, and you will see them primping and preening like some beautiful songbirds (all the more amazing and lovely despite being so common). Believe what you see on the television, the signs of a youthful rebellion used to sell CDs and cola, the soundtrack co-opted for a GAP commercial, beauty will never be skin deep. Not until you peel back the layers of trendy mall-love and false bravada.
Down the street, hear the strains of low-frequency bass, high-volume minimalism under growling braggery (street credibility rarely threatened by the a-list Hollywood parties and music video awards used to catapult the lean and hungry anarchist into heavy rotation), drawing ever closer.
See her smile as she flirts with the supposed danger of a 15-year old in his father's car, false tattoo and all. They have discovered something unknown since the foundation of the world, sweaty palms and hormones, and we are all idiots for not believing their soap-bubble protestations of eternity.
and three days later she's crying on your shoulder, wondering how her dark prince, James Dean for the junior high crowd, could be so cold, so cruel, so appealingly faithful in his faithlessness, and what she really wants is a guy just like you... but there's always the siren song, the sneer and leather jacket, the way he follows no rules (just like they told him to do in all the movies) and she'll write her catchphrase on her t-shirt again and ride off on the back of his roommate's motorcycle for another spin at midnight, teeth bared, cutting her feet on the edge of a knife-blade.
We mass-produce them, male and female, and it's cheaper to toss them away when we're done.