I'm on a bit of writing binge here. The song is "My Strongest Suit (Reprise) from Aida. ConCrit most welcome.

Disclaimer: What do you think would happen if I owned them?

I may leave a great impression

as I race through a succession

of the latest crazes, chase the newest fad.

I didn't want to be prom queen. Not really. Not after I got up on the stage. It was like the moment before the first drop on a rollercoaster, and I was the one person screaming and crying, ruining the ride for everyone else, but quietly. Silently.

I'll never understand why people seem to like me: I'm a fraud. When I finished junior high, I decided I was done waiting for the best years of my life to start. I grew out my hair, got my ears pierced and, God forbid it happen again, I wore skirts. I walked in on the first day and was swallowed up as "one of them".

I didn't talk that much to start with them, in case I was found out to be in possession of a brain, but I didn't need to. All I had to do was toe the line without question and I was fully protected from the other kind of idiots who had savaged me for getting an A+ on all my 8th Grade book reports and beating them at Space Invaders at the arcade, so I guess Operation Cranial-Vacuum was a success. For the first time I felt truly safe at school, in a social capacity, even though I felt like a completely different person by 3:31. I was being suffocated by make-up and magazines.

I feel better when beguiling,

find that fashion keeps me smiling,

but in my heart, I know, it's rather sad,

My teachers complained that I wasn't living up to the expectations that they had been furnished with by my old teachers. I pretended I didn't care. What good was an education when I "would only get married"? With this new persona, I could consider myself on the fastrack to intellectual retirement. I could hear Janis Ian staring at me with scorn on the radio.

that a life of great potential

is dismissed, inconsequential,

and only ever seen as being "cute"

Jack put the keys on top the dashboard. I started to panic. I didn't sign up for this. He was moving in for the kill. I, on the other hand, wanted to live.

I ran 25 blocks in high heels.

Once when I was little, Dad had to get his dress uniform replaced. He said I could keep the old one and Cathy hung it in my wardrobe in a dry-cleaning bag. The lapel was on his new one, but apart from that it looked the same. When I got home, I peeled off my dress and threw it in the direction of my overflowing trash can. I scrambled to get the shirt and the slacks on, wishing all the while I was another person, wishing I was myself.

So I'll flutter to deceive.

No, I must believe

that one day I'm bound to find...

I locked my eyes to the mirror. For the first time in my life, I liked what I what I saw.

I wonder...

A stronger suit.