This is a prose published in Smack #2 issue.
I wear a lot of black and red. Save for a few grey or white or pink items – all offshoots of black and red, how convenient – my closet operates within a strict color scheme. I am a natural blonde, so I shapeshift by finding whatever shade of black dye that has ultra void very extreme in the name. It’s therapeutic, really, watching myself transform as I touch up my roots or button up my favorite Wrangler collared shirt. I’ve shapeshifted a lot in general, constantly changing, trying to find a spot and self to land at. I wasn’t always dark hair and dark colors and silver jewelry. My favorite activity was going to Goodwill with the intent of finding the most visually assaulting vests and button ups. Walk up to a front desk at NAU and you’d see someone playing Minecraft, donning bubblegum pink hair and 2020 TikTok makeup, with a nametag covered in stickers. A few months later, that hair would be shaved and natural blonde, with a bandana and earth tones and rose gold jewelry.
I am a maximalist at heart (hence the visually assaulting thrift shop hauls). I don’t think I knew that until I met more creative people, until I found online art communities that spoke to me. When I was a kid, I had shimmery pink-purple walls and that was really the first big time I could feel that I was always going to be a little too much – and I loved it. I tried the whole blending-in thing. I tried Forever 21 hauls and crying in dressing rooms for way too long, only for nothing to come of it. My legs and soul were stuffed into skinny jeans. Underwire dug into my sternum. Everything was heather grey and off-white and light-sky-robin’s-egg-baby blue. And then one day I left the thrift store with a shirt that my parents hated. I loved it. I wore it all the time, and they’d comment on it and say it was ridiculous. I’d pair it with overalls and socks with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings.
I don’t have that shirt anymore. In fact, I don’t really have any of my old clothes. Even if they fit, they’ve outgrown me. I’ve outgrown them. My clowncore kidcore primary color art hoe TikTok Monster energy gun aesthetics came and went. I tried on outfit after outfit, mask after mask, trend after trend. But these trends made me feel something. I got some direction for once. I found other people who liked bright colors and thought fun eyeliner should be everyday socially acceptable. I found patch pants and rainbow-laced Doc Martens. I found scene and emo and goth and scenemo and whimsigoth and every other adjacent subculture; I already loved the music, so seeing the way people dressed to signal that was life changing.
I don’t have that hideously amazing shirt anymore. I no longer have my button-up vest that looked like the carpet in a bowling alley. But I am forever a maximalist and I am forever a thrift store scourer. I have a bright red windbreaker with a golden sunflower on the zipper, and black patterns on the collar and cuffs. Black pants have turned grey and gained holes, now covered in flannel patches and iron-ons. A black miniskirt with white stitching is now sewn shut at the bottom, Home Depot chains attached to the top, covered in pins – a purse that doubles as an unfortunate anti-stealth measure, I guess. I have layered necklaces and way too many rings and chunky, goofy, downright distracting earrings.
When you spend so long trying to shove yourself into a box, into bright blue skinny jeans, into womens-cut graphic tees, you hold on to every ounce of anything outside of that. You take it and run the second you can get out of your head and out of the norms. Sometimes I scroll through my old Facebook, or dig deep in my camera roll, and look at a smiling girl with long blonde hair and a striped primary color sweater. She is wearing overalls with rainbow patches on it, one strap off the shoulder. She has a flower crown and she’s posing in front of sunflowers. If you looked at a picture of her and me now, you’d be baffled to know it’s But every time she bought a new sweater at the thrift store, every time she wore fun socks and flower crowns and rainbow chokers, she was one step closer to me.
I take pride in the first impressions I give off when I walk into a room, black Doc Martens and black jeans and black turtleneck, a few red accents sprinkled across patches and crystal necklaces. I take pride in walking into the grocery store and being far too accessorized. I listen to my purse clash against itself, the loud footsteps, the necklaces bouncing while I walk. People look at me and know I’m a maximalist. The way I dress clues people in on the fact that I had Tumblr at 13 years old and really liked the Blurryface album by Twenty One Pilots. I used to hide these things, shoving myself down into the depths of cringe culture, never to be seen again… until now, at age 23, wearing a Fall Out Boy shirt. Some things never change, sometimes they just get louder. I’m grateful to be loud. I hope that sunflower yellow girl sees I’m finally confident enough to go out in public, dressed like me.