Queens Among Princesses

By Kaila Philo

 

We spend the majority of our days

primping and preening dead protein

adorning our crusty scalps as if,

somehow,

this dead protein were our crowns,

made us pretty princesses in this great

kingdom indwelled by normality.

We curl and we straighten,

we perm and we relax,

we dye and we dye and we

dye,

for what?

We fear baldness,

we loathe that exposure of our

true human forms,

attributing baldness with terminal illness,

branding barren women as lepers,

casting them off into the shadows

of our dominion,

instead of

deeming them nobility

for disposing their tiaras,

dispelling this illusion of their royalty

and walking among the peasants.

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Kaila Philo is a 17-year-old queer Buddhist writer. She plans to attend Sarah Lawrence College as an English major and eventually join the Peace Corps as an English teacher. She also hopes one day to publish an array of books promoting gender equality, body positivity, and overall peace.