Track 6: "Bye Bye Barbara"

• IDEA: Well, you know that dolls are a motif in my writing. But for “Bye Bye Barbara,” there was one in particular I’d had in mind: Barbara Millicent Roberts—who is known to the world as “Barbie.”

I’d wanted a writing that kind of mimicked the style of—and also acted as a prelude to—“An Apology to Whom it May Concern,” from the first book. In An Apology, you see the me that doesn’t care about whether someone may find ‘my hips too wide, my nose shaped funny, my hair a bit too nappy for their tastes,’ etc. But in “Bye Bye Barbara”… you almost see the exact opposite, the me kind of right before I get there. The version of me that’s looking at this picture perfect image I’ve not only seen on a billion dolls, but that I’ve also seen bolstered in society time and time again as ‘ideal’. It’s why I end the writing with, “I had to get away from her.” Fully meaning: “I had to get away from some false image of perfection that was never meant to be truly attainable, anyway.”

• WRITING PROCESS: Oh my—have we finally encountered a writing in this series that wasn’t conceived by the domino process???

We have: “Bye Bye Barbara” was indeed a product of the ripple. 

• ✨ refresher on the ripple for memory’s sake: it’s where I know the line I get first is supposed to go in the middle, and my brain works outwards from that line to construct the rest of the words around it ✨

I vividly remember starting at the Brilliant blue eyes line. I’d really wanted to hone in on some of her most prominent features, the ones she’s almost known for. And I didn’t want to take the route of she’s loved because she’s white, pretty, and blonde. It felt like a lazy tactic, especially for the point I’d actually wanted to get across, which wasn’t to bash Barbie herself. So I wanted to pick other features of hers and make those the focal point.

• MY FAVORITE LINES: 

• oneeee 💋…

  • “Lips so pink they look like they just got kissed goodnight.”

• AFTERMATH: I will admit—when I looked down at the screen after these words came out, there was a bit of shell shock lol. I think it was me knowing it was going to be one of the earlier ones in the book. I knew reading something that sharp (or maybe blunt is the word? plainspokenly blunt and candid) that early on, especially with the way I ended it and considering the poem that follows immediately after it, I knew from then on, the melancholy and darker tone of the book would be set. So it was very much a “😳” moment, for the sake of my readers and what they'd experience lol.

Thank you for joining me for Track 6 🎶 (and for all the previous ones so far, too 🤍). 

This is wayyyyy more fun that I thought it’d be 💃🏽🪩.

(Truly thought I'd wind up hating it, like, two posts in and immediately want to discontinue 😂.)

Until next time 💋✨…

IG: @joyyy_reads ✨