Francesca Lia Block How to (Un)cage a Girl for the girls Contents Part 1: Years at the Asylum Thirteen: The Little Oven Fourteen: Europa Fifteen: The Canyon Popular Girl Sixteen: First time Seventeen: War Eighteen: Monster Nineteen: The Asylum A Myth of Love for Girls Part 2: In the Lair of the Toxic Blonde Lost in Los Angeles Toxic Blonde Media Queenz Duty: For Sofia Vampire in the City of Lost L.A. Bacchantes People’s Park (Escape to the North) Like Pretty My Love Part 3: Love Poems for Girls For the Girls Pain is Like an Onion Ornate Teenage Fairy: For M The Little Mermaid: For Ama Neptune’s Daughter Miniature Mouse For Valentina Valentina Screama As I Remember it: For Lily For Karen: Whose Last Name I can’t Recall Joanna: Wood Thorn Fairy Selene: The dress with the Cigarette Burns How to Become a Priestess Gretel Finds her Way Collage Miranda Fairy Sisters: For Sukha Happi Happi Joy Joy and Sad in Hawaii Yxta Titania The Face Valentine The Three Graces A Half Imagined History: For O Forty-five Thoughts for My Daughter and My Virtual Daughters How to (Un)cage a Girl About the Author Other Books by Francesca Lia Block Credits Copyright About the Publisher PART 1 years at the asylum thirteen: the little oven i thought my teacher was a nazi with hair slicked to the side short and germanic he lectured about hitler spittle in his voice boys with greasy scalps drew cartoons of me with a witch’s nose my body was so thin i had chopped off my pretty brown hair my skin charred and blistered red bumps broke out there was blood between my legs is this junior high school? hell? or somewhere worse? fourteen: europa in florence i saw the most beautiful man in the world standing by the botticelli birth of venus as if the painting had split open to deliver him he even smiled at me white teeth golden cheekbones on the top of the hill was david huge marble perfection exposing his penis to me alone can you imagine in america god made flesh but without the blood or loincloth? by the trevi fountain in rome pan himself made an appearance curls and a gap between his teeth when he grinned at me a hairy, cloven mystery lurking in his jeans the hotel overlooked a square the walls were thick and ghost white with moonlight shadows streaked the room i woke to hear my father growling to my mother “get onto me” and saw their bodies moving in the bed beside my tiny single cot that was when i too turned to stone my mouth sealed shut they packed me up and took me off to greece to introduce me to some marble goddesses without pubic hair as if that might make me feel better my parents with good intentions rolled their new caryatid onto the white sands of the beach a million perilous pulverized petals of pearl the water was such a sheer blue you could see right through it to the wavy patterns on the ocean floor like aphrodite’s hair i knew i should be grateful for this opportunity to see the birthplace of the goddess but how could i ever speak of it? the greek boys came to play with me they frolicked around brown and curly full of life when night fell and the ouzo glasses lit up like lanterns in the taverna my mother said, “kiss him, darling, it’s easy so natural” and i thought to myself, not with lips of stone dear mother not with lips of stone fifteen: the canyon steamy hot night in the eucalyptus rainwater-forged canyon my friend and i discovered a ruined house the wildflowers growing over the foundation and a silver ring with a king a queen a snake and a rose then as we walked home a boy on a motorcycle zoomed to a halt leonine face tall rambling body somehow the next thing i remember he was sliding his hands up and down my legs i hadn’t shaved and was prickly but he didn’t seem to mind later we kissed in my friend’s shag-carpeted bedroom with the water bed and beanbag chairs his hands moved higher i wonder where the parents were i know a few months later my mom dropped me off at his apartment in west hollywood his mother was gone i imagined she was very beautiful young and blond maybe in the sex industry no father and i was wearing tight jeans and a floral crepe blouse with fake pearl buttons and when he kissed me he said i tasted like garlic from the bagels i’d eaten with my parents at brunch this he minded though he did let me touch his penis and then i left that is all i remember though i think once in a disco parking lot i saw him again but nothing happened why do i remember only certain details and really the main question is where was my mother? popular girl who are you? (you are not like me) where do you come from? who are your parents? what does your mother look like? and your father—how does he make money? to pay for those jeans? those shoes? and what about your hair it is all about the hair you cannot be one without good hair with frizz or split ends what kind of shampoo do you use? what does your hair smell like? it is long and shines is there a rule about pimples? you never have pimples why not? are your hormones different? are you an alien? what are you going to be when you grow up? are you still going to be beautiful with good hair? even when you die? are you still going to be mean? are you going to be a beautician, wife or realtor? cosmo cover girl? queen?
