how to be a girl

They looked like pink sugar, glitter seeming to dance in and out of the pores of their faces. Whipped glosses on their lips, body butter, perfume, long strands of beads falling from their earlobes. They all looked delicious, like sugar-crusted lollipops, sweet and sparkling and candy-smooth. Except for when the fatigue crept into the masks of their makeup, folding little lines of liquor-dehydration and "tired of smiling for the cameras" into their faces. They slouched, they sighed, they resigned themselves to silent cell phones and chewing gum, shining into their G&Ts, into the night.