"You, Miss Starr, were a missed person."

[sunshine_queen]

Moon River
Wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style
Someday

Oh, dream maker
You heartbreaker
Wherever you're going
I'm going your way

Two drifters
Off to see the world
There's such a lot of world
To see

We're after the same
Rainbow's end
Waiting 'round the bend
A huckleberry friend
Moon River
And me

 

 

Sometimes it's not enough to be pretty.

It's not enough to be pretty, because pretty is as pretty does. Sometimes Pretty is wanted for being just that, pretty, and because everyone can feast their eyes on her, they feel that they can feast on everything else for free as well, and when Pretty is taught that that's the way of the world, what else can Pretty do? Pretty acquiesces, and she has a gay old time, falsely smiling and laughing and putting on airs and getting away with them because she can, because she's Pretty.

Sometimes Pretty gets scared, and she doesn't know what she's worth, so she lets others pay with whatever they feel right, if they deign to pay at all. And when someone different comes, Pretty just doesn't know what to do, because for once a man hasn't fallen flat on his face when greeted by her charms and her smile and her honey-smooth voice. And because Pretty has never met such opposition before, she falls hard and she falls fast, and she never realizes that it's her face that will be the ruin of her, even though some might think that it was him.

It's Pretty's face that gets her in trouble, Pretty's face that sets her up for a lifetime of disappointment, and when Pretty does what she has to to get out, Pretty does, because she's been given no other life skills. She only knows how to charm and to entangle, and so she'll use her stock and trade to get what she wants, her freedom, and imprison herself in the process.

Pretty runs away, and it's a harsh world, but Pretty gets by, because she's just that, pretty, but it's not like when she was home. And when he shows up, and rescues her from a lifetime of an empty looking-glass, it's as it should be, because she is pretty.

But Pretty has weaved herself a web to get back to him, and she lives in happy illusions for a while, but nothing gold can stay. God didn't breathe in long enough when He breathed life into her, she said so herself, and pretty faces would never tell such a pretty lie.

In the end, her looks can't save her, and Pretty dies alone with her bad lungs, without the violins and her ex-beaux coming, not even him, and she's buried in a bone orchard in New Orleans, and you have to wonder if he ever knew what became of her when she ran out of his house into the rain, even though she was afraid of thunder, because she was afraid of the look in his eyes more. She wasn't an educated one, that Pretty, and she caught her death, and now her sister walks the railroad tracks, all decked out with the bangles her beaux gave her dangling on her sister's skinny arms, the sister trying desperately to be both Pretty and pretty, because it's all she knows, and she wants someone to say to her, like they did to Pretty, You, Miss Starr, were a missed person.

Alva Starr's being Pretty didn't save her from harsh reality, and it won't save me, especially when I'm no where near as pretty as Natalie Wood, and I'm not the main attraction and, above all, I'm not desperate, and I'm not magical, and I'm not mythical. I'm a semi-pretty nobody with flimsy charm and a nothing-fantastic air.

Comments

[xcoquette.livejournal.com]

I know how that feels. And I'm glad I'm not Pretty like that. Self-destructive, maybe.

[cryssa.livejournal.com]

I am looking through your friend's photo album (link from her blog, linked on your blog). You are all so, so gorgeous, which I think I said when I first saw it a few months ago. But oh well.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/97390601/110518884kdwhck

And that guy is... very hot.

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

*cracks up* Ewww, that's Chris, one of the many hearts Philly's broken. He was hot but not so bright, and not so tall.

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

And that is SO JEN in your icon!

[beccabee.livejournal.com]

lies! you are a perfect balance of pretty and charm and fantasticness because i said so, so hah.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Going by the pics I've seen of you, you so are pretty. And you can write. :-)