When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, "What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?" What comes next? Oh right, "Will I be rich?" Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells.
当我还只是个小女孩，我问过我母亲：“我会变得怎样？我会变漂亮吗？我会变美吗？我会变漂亮吗？”下一句是什么？喔对了：“我会变富有吗？”那也几乎是漂亮的问题，取决于你在哪里购物的。那个漂亮的问题从观念开始感染，传遍血液和呼吸并带进细胞里。
The word hangs from our mothers' hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry. "Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?"
在忧心忡忡的刺眼荧光灯下，那个字挂在我们母亲的内心。“我会被渴望吗？会有价值吗？会漂亮吗？”
But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dryad: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting.
但青春期留给我这个哈哈镜精灵：依照科幻小说角度排列的牙齿、歪鼻子、脸有如驴子般长、还布满荷尔蒙大玩指印画时留下的浓疱疤痕。
My poor mother. How could this happen? "You'll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb. That's why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were six. Otherwise your nose would have been just fine! Don't worry. We'll get it all fixed!" She would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way then that, as though it were a cabbage she might buy.
我可怜的母亲。这怎么会发生呢？“当我们可以去看皮肤科医生时，你就会有陶瓷般的肌肤。你吸吮大拇指。那就是为什么你的牙齿看起来像那副德性!你在六岁时被飞盘打中脸。不然你的鼻子会就好好的!别担心。我们会让它全部修整好。”她会这么说，抓着我的脸，扭向这边然后那边，好似那是一颗她会购买的高丽菜。
But this is not about her. Not her fault. She, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade.
但这不关她的事。不是她的错。她同样也是被养大去相信她可以送给她笨拙小女儿的最大资产是一面可以贩售的表象。
By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs. Laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand new nose the surgeon had carved. Belly gorged on two pints of my own blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, "What did you let them do to you?"
在十六岁时，我被软膏、药物、过氧化氢所醃渍。牙齿被钢刺围起。躺在病床上，脸上包满纱布，盖住那外科医生雕刻出来的全新鼻子。肚子塞满两品脱我在麻醉时吞下的自己的血，还有我内脏每次的抽筋扭痛都像我的身体从里头向外对我大叫：“你让他们对你做了什么事？”
All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. "Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?" Like my mother, unwinding the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her 10,000 dollars bought her. Pretty? Pretty.
这段永远不会结束的合唱曲一直不断地嗡嗡响起，就像静脉点滴将美丽之液滴进我的血。“我会美丽吗？我会美丽吗？”就像我的母亲，拆开礼物包装，露出她一万美金买来的女儿花束。美丽吗？美丽。
And now, I have not seen my own face in 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me. This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but who haven't a clue where to find fulfillment or how to wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath the tyranny of those two pretty syllables. About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crestfallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.
现在，我已经十年没看过我自己的脸了。我已经十年没看过我自己的脸了，但这不关我的事。这是关于我们将自己绘上小丑妆去参加的这个自残马戏团。关于会在六间商场中的三十家商店里四处找寻合适小礼服的女人，但不晓得要去哪儿找到成就感、或如何带着欢乐，漫步于遭购物袋束缚的人生中的女人，就在那两个美丽音节的暴政之下。关于打滚在酒吧高脚椅间，沉闷地练习勾引他人，而所有今晚会游荡回家的人，都意志消沉，因为没有足够的陌生人觉得你适合带去开房间。
This, this is about my own someday daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, "Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?" I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, "No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters. You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely 'pretty.' "
这个，这是关于我自己未来有朝一日的女儿。当你走近我，已经让不安全感扎满全身，乞求着：“妈，我会漂亮吗？我会漂亮吗？”我会将那问题如廉价口红般从你嘴上抹去，并回答：“不!漂亮这个字不值得形容你将会成为的一切，我的孩子不会被限制在五个字里。你会变得很聪明、很有创意、很迷人。但你，绝不会只是单单的‘漂亮’。”
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