My Ideal Heroine

I read the short story, Red Dress, 1945 by Alice Munro for English class, and wasn't happy with the narrator or ending, so I decided to make up my own protagonist for a story. The poem refers to the short story often.



The smile of Tupac Shakur hits you like a jolt of lightning

When one enters this girl's room---clippings from The Source and Vibe

Give off the vibe that this girl is inspired and desires to express herself like an artist armed with cans of spray paint and an idea like a blue sky

This girl doesn't wear red dresses or dream of getting the soft kiss from the obscure guy with the curly black hair and shell-toe Jam master J sneakers she somehow never noticed

Her mother fears the tight embrace of hip hop culture, even after this girl has taken it by the hand and followed it like a stray cat across alleys colored with rhymes and poetic verses tagged on walls that the city just missed in the growing quest to clean up New York

This girl wears tight jeans---tight as in sharp, as in skin-hugging snug against her legs

She wears a worn white T shirt just to see the look on her prim old grandmother's face when a black bra strap pokes out and leaves a lasting impression of this soured child---Gold hoop earrings, hot pink shell toes---two turntables and a microphone replace the brain in this girl

This girl is no whore, though she'll occasionally dress up to tease the boys and paint her face with more makeup than a child experimenting with her mother's cosmetics for the first time

There's nothing special in her looks, though she carries herself like she invented posture---don't mistake her step for b-girl swagga---she doesn't get in pedestrian's faces or shakes her hips with each move she makes on murky concrete and littered walkways ---she saves that for tonight

Like MC Lyte, this girl doesn't create herself a persona for the stage, she's already fierce, explosive like a gunshot ringing in your ears once she spits out a couple verses----metaphors hit her like a speeding bullet, she personifies like hip hop himself was there giving her his stare, waiting viciously for her next line----though she'd see hip hop as a proud woman,

The boys rapped like girls and women spouted out the hottest lines in this girl's mind

She loves the poetry of New York's greatest male MCs, don't get this girl wrong---she'll reach out to California, Chicago, as far south as Miami for the inspiration she craves---She can tell the men are dominant in this game, she will beat them

Tonight she wears her brother's kangol---He isn't here, but off into the murky night, always lit by kitchen windows and sirens, off with b-boys in oversized wifebeaters
Blasting music out of boom boxes with words about guns and street killings

These boys aren't looking for a fight, only the look on people's faces as they see this posse on the corner slouched up against alleyways talking huddled close so one would think they were scheming

In reality they only talk like the thugs they imitate in fashion


After this girl grabs the mike and shows this crowd how untouchable she is, she slinks back into her seat

guys call out her name

girls whisper in packs about what this girl believes to be her downfall

This girl is not gonna last long----She sticks out, doesn't stick to a beat, sooner or later she's gonna taste defeat

She doesn't have any respect to gain from rapping, no acceptance to win

The man of her dreams? already got one, well, not of-her-dreams, but still a man who knows his job

There is no kiss at the end of her story---some romance, but never sealed with an awkward embrace---This girl doesn't need to marry to be fortunate

She's happy smoking in public school bathrooms, on crowded street corners in sweaty summer nights---in winter the cigarettes are replaced with hot chocolate at diners with associates

This girl has no friends, only cronies and well-wishers---she looks the part of your average b-girl stereotype, yet feels out of place in a normal setting

She fills out surveys in trash magazines, gushes about boys with other girls, kids who this girl will later write off as 'boycrazy'

This girl is merry in spite of all the ups and downs, wins and losses--She is fortunate, hopeful like the ray of sun that first wakes you up



This girl can be black or white, Latina or Asian, thin or fat, strong or fragile


All we know is she is from New York, has the desire to be an MC she will never fully fulfill and thinks positive in spite of it all----Her attitude might sour in later years

This girl doesn't have a set-in-stone future, hair color, name

In the story she might be a somebody, yet has no identity----at least not one I gave her.