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succeeded at killing my nose. Murdering it.
    On my sixteenth birthday they paid a man to take my nose out. They hired a hit man to take my poor nose down. The only problem is that my nose was attached to me.
    I didn’t even know what was happening. They kept telling me I would be happy and everything would be better and I would thank them for it because my life would be so much easier. I thought they were taking me to Paradise Chang restaurant. I thought we were going to have my favorite Chinese food. Then we were at this little hospital clinic place. I didn’t understand. There was a doctor who oddly had a big nose himself. He told me it was a really simple procedure. My mother looked guilty, but she kept making herself smile. Then the doctor drugged me. I don’t remember anything. When I woke up I was so nauseousand they were all hovering strangely over me and I could tell something terrible had happened. I started vomiting flesh and bone and blood. My nose was coming out all over me, ruined hammered destroyed. I was crying and I didn’t even really know how to cry without a nose. And my father took my hand and said, “You will be a princess now,” and I said, “I don’t want to be a princess. I was happy being a clown. My nose protruded but it gave me history and mystery. It made me what I was. There is nothing now. Just this stupid mess in the middle of my face. I was once Mesopotamia and now I’m a mall.”
    I know this is hard to believe but I never dreamed of being pretty. I felt sorry for the pretty girls ’cause everyone was always staring at them. They never really talked or did anything. They were just there, like … pretty. Goldfish in a bowl. Just swimmering around, being looked at. Occasionally nibbling at the fish food, but nibbling ’cause we all know skinny is the same as pretty. That’s the thing about being pretty. There are so many things you have to not do to be pretty. I mean it becomes your life. Not doing things. I stay pretty. I do pretty. I don’t eat. I pick. I circle. I visit. I deprive. I starve. Because I do not eat, I do not have much energy. Food actually makes your brain function. So pretty people move slower. They can’t do too much. They do not have very expansive thoughts. But then again, they don’t need to. They’re pretty.
    Funny people can eat all they want. I used to love food. You can enjoy it ’cause funny people enjoy everything.
    Pretty people mainly hang out with other pretty people. That’s sort of what they do. Then it’s all about who is prettier. Your whole life becomes about being the prettiest.
    I miss my nose. Every day I rub it and dream of telling lies like Pinocchio so it will grow back. I went on this secret date with a boy who told me I was pretty. I’m not really. He thought I was being coy. I wasn’t born pretty. I’m not naturally pretty. I’m fake pretty. He didn’t understand and so he kissed me ’cause that’s what boys do when they don’t know something and don’t want to look stupid. When he kissed me there was nothing in the way. It was too easy. I didn’t even have to make a joke about it. And that was sad ’cause the joke about my nose always made the guy laugh and then we both relaxed and kissing was always so much better then.

WOULD YOU RATHER (II)
    GIRL 1
    Would you rather get caught stealing or cheating? Would you rather ask him to put on a condom or give him oral sex?
    GIRL 2
    I don’t want to play this.
    GIRL 1
    Would you rather lose your mother or your father? Be in a tsunami or an earthquake? Be buried alive or freeze to death?
    GIRL 2
    I’m going to sleep.
    GIRL 1
    Why won’t you ever play?
    (Silence)
    It’s just a game.
    (Silence)
    You’re no fun.

GIRL FACT
    About one in three high school students have been or will be involved in an abusive relationship. Forty percent of teenage girls ages fourteen to seventeen say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.

 
    Dear Rihanna,
    I used