have you considered that maybe i am not pleasant? maybe i wear lipstick so that you will see my pretty pink mouth wrapping around a coffee cup lid and be distracted enough not to notice that i am intelligent and powerful; a threat. maybe i draw my brows into high arches so you will look at my unimpressed skepticism and overlook my spiteful glare as a trick of my silly, girlish routine. maybe i wear my heels so high and thin so that i grasp your attention with the sway of my hips as i listen to the click-clack-click against the floor and know that if you should try to overpower me i walk on sharpened knives. maybe when i laugh at your worthless jokes i am really baring my fangs waiting patiently for the day that i sink them into your neck. i am not made of porcelain pleasantries; you will find that these things are my armor to keep you at a distance so you do not step on me and shatter my fragile control. i am not a husk — i am not wilting. i am turning my head so that the fire blazing through my eyes does not catch on the accelerant of your sweaty palms and burn your bones to dust. i am not your pretty girl; i am a fury, a faerie, a phoenix — a forest of werewolves and wendigos that will carve out your chest so that the next time i paint my pretty pink lips i will taste the copper tang of your dying breaths.