Double Standards

See that girl sitting over there? Rumor has it that in the ninth grade she and a senior boy with a movie poster face and a Hollister body went at it in the bushes at Sarah Something-Or-Other's 18th birthday party but you see, what really happened was, she was standing by the house and he offered her a drink and poor girl, she never saw it coming, didn't know that he'd decorated the beer with the most delicate lace and as soon as she was too confused to introduce herself like her Mama always taught her he took her and now she has a dozen diseases with painful names and maybe a baby– who knows?– because of all of the guys who call her easy and, like the senior boy at Sarah's party, never bother to learn that she goes by Chastity. Then there's the wrestler who hasn't gained weight in three years. Every day he steps on the scale and stares at the number and tries to fight back tears because he's trying, really, he is, he's trying so, so hard to lose the extra one, two, three, ten pounds because when he looks in the mirror all he sees is a monster with sausage fingers and tree trunk legs and a beach ball belly, never mind the fact that he's the heavyweight champion, he just wants to be skinny or skinnier but nobody listens and everyone laughs because boys can't be anorexic, right? And we can't forget about the boy with the lines on her wrists. They've been there since last October when her older brother moved out and left him there alone to deal with the whispers of the other kids who hate him because he likes to call herself Mary– not merry m-e-r-r-y, because who could be happy with a life like hers?, but Mary M-a-r-y, because he's liked boys since middle school– and oh, how cruel of you all to call him those names because I don't think he's queer, no, I just think he's different and different is good sometimes because if we were all the same we'd be just like you.