my head is bloody but unbowed (original)

12:12 am - Sun, Feb 19, 2012: 225 notes

my head is bloody but unbowed (original)

When she is fifteen, Georgia collects stamps; when she is eight, Georgia collects her brother’s Hot Wheels cars, hides them in her bottom dresser drawer and packs them with bubble wrap so they won’t rattle. She lies when her father asks if she’s seen them, and little Randall wails and wails, five years old and so impatient. She gives them back to him later, one by one, hides them places only he would look—it’s worth it for the look on his face, like he’s stumbled on something magical, and, of course, she plays with them until they’re returned.

It doesn’t do to neglect something’s purpose, after all. Waste not, want not; her mother’s always said that.

When she is twenty, Georgia collects men. She doesn’t do anything with them, of course, doesn’t keep them even when they wish to be kept; she simply captures them, the right dress, the wrong look, the victory of their eyes raking up and down her body before she slips out the back. It’s playing with fire, and when she was thirteen, Georgia collected flint; it’s dancing with wolves, and when she was 19, Georgia collected timber.

That last one’s a little bit of a stretch, but then, so is Georgia. She figures she’ll allow it.

When she is twenty-two, Georgia nearly collects what she’s been told is her due, grabbed by the wrist outside a house-party and dragged from sight. It is lucky that, at twenty-one, she had dared to collect skill-sets; she trips him, flips him over her shoulder with the ease of long practice, digs a heel into his mouth.

She does not bow her head, not in the street and not in the subway, not over her dinner and not to the weight of the storm. Georgia has been Georgia all her life; she’s mostly been collecting herself.

(via specspectacle)