Pretty People: Meghan (The Price of Beauty)

1% of America has enough money to surpass life and then to live.
the other 99% can get by, but most cannot even do that.
Let me give you a hint: I am not part of the 1%.
No, I am part of the mass blob of poverty.

"Money makes the world go around".
For my world, it slows and stops it.

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or by its price tag. But we all do; don't deny it. WE pick our friends because of class. We want the top friends; the ones with the nicest clothes and the ones that will get you places. I'm not going to be one of those girls.

People sometimes pity me...most times the look at me like I’m a disgusting Tissue that has been blown in...And to others I am just air to walk through. Nothing.

But they forget that they're only human.
I'm human too.
Before Money was ever invented we were all human. No money; no class; no status.
Status is a fancy word for Rancid Pride and Ego.

I live in a small house. Not even that; it is an insult to say it is less or more than a place to sleep at night...or try. It is a pimple on the face of a tiny town in New Jersey where the kids grow up to work at gas-stations and fast food chains.

My mom works two jobs to just run power through our little place. My mother is so strong. She is the glue that holds my crumbled little worthless world together. Our lives are supported by rotted driftwood, and she somehow manages to keep us afloat. I don't know how she does it...perhaps I never will. But she is amazing and I don't know what I would do without her.

She raised me, my brother and my dog by herself.
My brother is a pig.

Not just for his looks but his mannerisms are piggish. I cannot bare to look upon him, cause it is all I see. We are pigs, stuck in Farmer Life's pen. He is free to slaughter us and spares no mercy, and leaves us out in the sun-dried mud to roll around in and rot.

We are rotting pigs in the mud.

Sometimes I pretend like I’m a farmer, and not a pig. I can afford things. I can afford to put food every night on the table for my family. I can eat. I don't mean survive, i mean eat.I want to loosen my belt buckle instead of hold my stomach in pain. Sometimes we go weeks without food.

All our money goes into keeping a hot tin roof over our head. A tin roof that is rusting.
I want to give money to my family to buy them things and make them feel wanted.

I want my mom to wear pearls. Really pearls. She deserves them. I want her to relax and get the thanks she deserves for being there for me. But i cannot, with all the stars in the sky and wishing, I cannot.

I cannot be anything but a Pig. And I try to get out of the mud, but the mud is quick sand and I'm sinking and sinking deeper and deeper into 99% of America.

Deeper and deeper.

But if I’m going to drown in this quicksand of dollars and pennies, I am not going down as a pig. I am going as a human being.

Pretty People are made out of Ugly experiences.
I am not a pig; I am a pretty person.

Someday.
Everyday.

Just not today.



Meghan Kitzler 16 years old, November 15, 2011.