I want to live inside a reality television makeover set with good lighting and a trio of style experts who promise to fix me. I want someone to really see me, to interpret and diffuse my essence into a natural makeup look, a flattering haircut, and outfits that are conventionally fashionable with a unique personal twist. I want my face shape to determine my future successes, my good features standing out like city lights on a horizon, calling out to people, making them want to aspire to be like me, too. I want to get really good at using highlighter. I want to get really good at a natural smoky eye. I want to get really good at filling in my brows so that my eyes stand out, so you cannot see how dark the circles are under them, so that I look approachable. To be unapproachable is to be lost forever to your own impenetrability. It’s like building an electric fence around yourself adorned with fairy lights that read ‘dying alone’. It’s like building a moat between yourself and the world, filled with crocodiles that do not yet know how to adequately contour their jaws.

I want my outfits to communicate some vital truth about my interiority that my body cannot alone. I want them to say: here I am. I am alive. I am valid.