April 17th

Little Girl I Wanna Marry You

My Barbies never married a Ken
or each other.
Afternoons in the backyard, they 
wore handmade dresses of original design, 
fabric full of late 80's loud Caribbean print -
multicolored large flowers on orange backgrounds - 
and worked as librarians, doctors, 
teachers, seamstresses, and sometimes
personal trainers.


When I tired of them, my dolls became
babies, little helpless children who lived with
their cool uncles. An uncle could hire 
a beautiful babysitter to care for them, leave
them behind at night to go on fabulous dates
with the tree trunks with names like 
Monica and Suzana, who were in turn
models, women of society, and once or twice
princesses. 


An Uncle could, at the end of a date
say goodnight to Suzana Tree Trunk with 
a demure peck that would turn into 
9 year-old lips brushing bark until raw, 
and suddenly Suzana Tree Trunk was not
as exciting as the possible librarian sleeping


and so an Uncle could say goodnight
and sated return to a home without princesses, 
only children happy to see him home. 
Never once did an Uncle think what would happen
if Barbie met another Barbie
and fell in love. 
© Yazcaminante, 2011