By Anaiis Rios-Kasoga ’25
Editor-In-Chief
The best American girl lives in a three-story house across the line that divides our towns in a city I used to try and call my own.
She lives there with her brother
he made varsity this year
Her father is the best orthodontist for miles and their dog Marly well she’s got a bit of uncharacteristic color.
A girl’s best friend should always have some color.
And her mother stays home all day to make lunches because she cares.
The best American girl does not need to repeat her name.
Hello Emily. I mean Ella. I mean Grace. I mean Abby.
The best American girl used to call the Mayflower home but now she settles for the colonial on the corner with its white picket fence white shutters and white neighbors.
The best American girl and I used to be friends. She would run her fingers through my hair. Slender, white, ending in manicured claws catching in the tangles-
I mean curls.
She brushes hers dry
silky smooth golden spun from a wheel that’s pricked princesses a life out of fairytales.
She used to invite me over.
Come visit. See how the other half lives.
90210 – 48823
The best American girl listens to the best music. Have you heard of The Strokes?
She never takes the bus her mother drives their second car suburban-like their neighborhood to pick her up right on time. 3 o clock. on the dot. no waiting. no concerns. no
Asking
“honey do you have someone to get you?”
Asking
“do you have someone who cares?
When she turns sixteen she ditches the razor scooters we would ride along the smooth white expanse of her side streets for that shiny new rite of passage waiting in her well paved walk
a mode of transportation she will never use to drive too far.
When I step inside her home I am swallowed and leave born again. If you are lucky you too could live such a distant existence.
The best American girl plays soccer.
She is the poster girl for athleisure.
Isn’t she something? I love that she puts no effort in. she’s so cool!
Her hair lays flat on its own no need to be tamed by a hand other than her own.
Soft enough for the all-American boy to run his fingers through.
The best American girl has parents who love each other. it is always better to love in silence. favor cold for the heat stability for the whole.
she gets one Christmas but they make it grand.
Her smile is so white on the card that hangs on my two-door fridge.
she says she’s concerned about my health because my cabinets don’t home the fruits that hers bear and my mama pierced my ears when I was the littlest Mija
but isn’t that unsafe?
and what is Mija?
The best American girl says shhhhhh you’re so loud. can you please be… less? and the me that is left drips out the side of my head as I knock out the water from my ear it’s stuck there from our trip to her house on the lake where I see a fractured self.
If you aren’t the best American girl you want to be.
if you want to be you can’t be.
and I will never be your best American girl
because your fingers will catch in my curls and I will repeat my name three times
because I’ve never had a picket fence to protect me from the outside.
I don’t live on the right half of the highway that bisects the good and the ghetto-the hood the south-side represent.
The best American girl wouldn’t drive her shiny white jeep on my side of town and my daddy found love in other arms and I feel heat where I should be cold.
I am not tethered to this place. I never love in silence you won’t get a Christmas card to put on your three door fridge, I want everything too much and I am not the best American girl.
I am not the best American girl
I am not the best American girl
I will not even be your less than best American girl.
