Queen Me
/I'd still like to be the Queen of Everything. More of an Alicia Keys than a Beyoncé though, simply because I would prefer wearing a comfy sweatshirt and no makeup on a stage over an uncomfortable leather mini-dress and caked-on foundation. I would definitely be a singing Queen though, but totally as an afterthought, as if I just happened upon an empty stage and was like, "Who me? Sing into this gold-plated microphone? Well, okay."
People wouldn't typically know that I was the Queen of Everything. I mean, how could they? I'd be wearing an unassuming grey sweater, maybe some yoga pants, or torn blue jeans, navy blue Swedish clogs or even Birkenstocks. Not to mention how I'd just be walking down the street all normal like, without any bodyguards or chaperones.
Most people would know, of course, and they'd say, "Gosh, but she's so normal!" But I wouldn't really be normal. No, I'd be the Queen of Everything! Untouchable. Resilient. Important. Unfazed by society, by natural disasters, by the government. Men wouldn't cat-call me if I was walking down a street, they wouldn't make lewd comments as I bent over to pick something up out of a vending machine. If I told someone it wasn't working, they wouldn't tell me I was being dramatic. They would ask for consent before putting their arm around me, they wouldn't condescendingly call me "young lady," and they certainly wouldn't ask me why I wasn't married, as if that was any of their damn business. For what imbecile would knowingly ask THE QUEEN that kind of crap.
The world that I'd be Queen of wouldn't call anyone a liar for telling the truth, it wouldn't tell a woman that she was "just so beautiful" and so she had it coming. We wouldn't throw not-yet-developed adults into a pressure cooker with booze and hormones, say "oh, boys will be boys," and call sexual assault "the college experience."
As the Queen of Everything, I'd sometimes go visit local schools, and young girls would ask me things like, "Can I also be Queen?" and "Where do you get your amazing Birkenstocks?" but also, innocently enough, "Queen, where IS your husband?" and I'd take time to respond to them, just like one of my predecessors, Michelle Obama, would have done.
I'd first explain, in the words of Diana Ross, how you can't hurry love, oh no, you just have to wait. And sometimes you have to wait a while. Second, I'd have to point out how nowadays, in this wonderful fantasy world we would be living in, it was very outdated to think a woman on her own was strange, uncomfortable. But third, I would give a history lesson, and explain how, in the past, many men would feel threatened by you know, my being Queen and all, and would want to diminish this greatness, leaving me no choice but to kick them to the curb.
"It won't happen to you, I promise," I'd tell these actual young ladies.
Their Queen would then get to tell them how once upon a time women USED to be burned at the stake for having a voice, how we USED to tell women they were "too much" when they spoke up, and how women's bodies USED to be for the male gaze before all else. But, I'd get to tell them with pride, in this wonderful fantasy world we would be in, that kind of baloney doesn't happen anymore.
Because I would be the Queen of Everything.
Post originally written by Ashley Nickels, October 2017. Do not reproduce without permission.
