The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: you stupid slut by nat raum

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the evolution of a beast⁶

Stage One- Pre Birth: this is before you even know that the song on the radio about passing out in your plastic leather pants has a title to suit the pit you’ve dug with these claws of yours. you know you’re destructive, that you’re your own “worst enemy”. you date around more than most and don’t really know what it means to be worthy, just that you’re not.

Stage Two- The Awakening: you get introduced to sex and then weed and then whiskey and coconut rum. maybe your internet friend brings a bottle to college in his volvo’s wheel well, or you sneak into a boy’s apartment to smoke a joint during your summer program, or you convince yourself it’s a good idea to lose your virginity to your ex on the half-day before christmas break starts. no matter how it happens, nothing is ever the same. you sink into the loam that is the warehouse space kickbacks after your summer hostess shifts and start to find a place where something you do is finally valuable to a man.

Stage Three- Maneater: this is the stage that i get the most resistance to. nobody likes to think of themselves as a maneater (or a groupie or a floozy; the choice is yours), but we’ve ALL been there. this is where you plant the bulb of your deepest longing for stability in salted soil and kick the dirt around until it spreads its roots. you want all the attention, practice the way you take a warm shot without your face revealing how much the liquor wants to shoot itself back up your throat, and follow blindly the lead of anyone you think might take you home.

the most common symptoms of being in this stage are: making eye contact with ANYONE who walks into a bar that looks your age, panic-swiping on dating apps while you sit at the bar after work, and generally replacing your inhibitions one by one with everfresh and cuervo margaritas until you’re so stewed and soggy your clothes fall off like tender ribmeat once he’s ready for you. some are more obvious than others in this stage than others, but believe me, you too will be/are/once were a maneater. sorry.

Stage Four- Disillusionment: this is where you start seeing cracks in the perfect structure that is your life in the summer. it happens different for all of us, but some sort of frost kills you off starting from the tips every fall and you’re left with only your taproot by november. maybe you take a chance on the new guy working cold side and get dumped over text, or you run into your ex with someone else in the dorm parking lot the first week of school, or you drag yourself into the first week of your last year of college after barely making it through a summer of sitting next to him with your shift beer and seeing her photo pop up over and over on his phone every night while he leaves you on read. you start doubting love and the failure that comes with it. this is the hardest stage to get through. all the faith you put into this thing starts to crumble, and you begin to feel lost once again.

Stage Five- Realization: the last stage. this is where you finally figure it out. that your folly was not your inability to withstand the frost as it ate its way through you, tucked away safe under soil. it was where you chose to lay yourself and eventually settle. where you looked around but for a glance and decided there could be sanctuary if you dug deep enough. it was how far into the crust you’d traveled without seeing the earth close back up behind you and what you became in the depths. how you burrowed around lost until you surfaced, newborn and sightless and dying to try better next time.

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⁶ title and format inspired by “The Evolution of a Juggalo” (author & year unknown).

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