FOXY CLEOPATRA by Mx.Enigma

This story is part of the Make it Bitter or Make it Better Writing Challenge, where we invited writers to explore the storytelling possibilities of a simple situation. We gave authors free reign to interpret the prompt as they see fit, provided that they give their story a clear ending.

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FOXY CLEOPATRA

The mirror in my childhood bedroom was mounted too high on the wall, as if it expected taller, broader boys to stand before it. I used to drag my desk chair across the carpet and climb up just to see myself properly. From that height, I could adjust my black hat and press my curls flatter against my temples, as though obedience were something you could sculpt with your hands.

The hat never sat quite right. Neither did I.

In yeshiva, the other boys moved with a choreography I never mastered—sharp nods, firm handshakes, elbows angled outward to take up space. I studied them the way I studied Talmud: carefully, analytically, looking for patterns. If you lower your voice half an octave, they don’t call you princess. If you walk slower, they don’t ask why you’re swaying. If you laugh less brightly, they don’t look at you like you’ve made a mistake.

I learned to edit myself like a censored manuscript.

At home, my mother’s Yemeni spices bloomed in oil—hilbeh, hawaij, cumin rising in warm spirals through the kitchen. My curls, thick and defiant, refused to lie flat no matter how much water I combed through them. The Ashkenazi boys’ payot fell in neat spirals, polite as parentheses. Mine insisted on being exclamation marks.

They mocked everything that felt sacred to me. The way I spoke with my hands. The softness in my voice. The fact that I idolized women who refused to shrink.

One afternoon, when I was twelve, I watched Beyoncé appear in Austin Powers in Goldmember, hips squared, eyes blazing, declaring: “I’m Foxy Cleopatra and I’m a whole lotta woman.”

The line struck me like revelation.

I rewound it three times.

A whole lotta woman.

The boys found out, of course. They always did. Someone saw the DVD case in my backpack. Someone mimicked my voice saying the line. They repeated it in falsetto until it felt less like a joke and more like a diagnosis.

I stopped saying it out loud.

But I never stopped hearing it.

For years, I lived like a sealed envelope. Addressed correctly. Stamped properly. Delivered where expected. Inside, something trembled—bright, sequined, impatient.

In high school, I practiced lowering my voice in the shower. In beit midrash, I forced my shoulders wider. I memorized the cadence of boys who were never questioned. When teachers praised my diligence, I felt both proud and fraudulent. They admired my discipline. They did not know it was camouflage.

Still, when no one was home, I would stand in front of that too-high mirror and lift my curls free from the hat. I’d let them spring outward like they were relieved to breathe. Sometimes I whispered, just to test the weight of it:

Cleopatra.

It felt forbidden and holy at once.

The first crack in the shell wasn’t dramatic. It was a wig shop window on a humid Tuesday afternoon. I was walking past, head down, when I caught my reflection in the glass—black hat, dark suit, shoulders folded inward.

Behind the glass stood mannequins crowned in waves and volume and unapologetic shine.

For a split second, I didn’t see the hat. I saw myself framed in curls that weren’t apologizing.

I stepped inside.

The air smelled like synthetic sweetness and possibility. The saleswoman didn’t look at me twice. I pretended to browse for a gift. My hands trembled when I reached for a honey-brown wig, thick and wild.

In the mirror, I held it above my head.

The person staring back at me didn’t look confused. They looked familiar.

Not new.

Recognized.

I didn’t buy it that day. But something irreversible happened. Once you see yourself clearly, it becomes difficult to go back to blur.

That night, alone in my apartment, I opened my laptop and filled out the legal name change form.

Middle name: Cleopatra.

My hands were steady.

It wasn’t rebellion. It was archaeology. I was excavating a part of myself buried under years of performance.

When the court document arrived weeks later, stamped and official, I held it like a birth certificate. I said the name out loud—slowly, reverently.

No lightning struck. No choir descended.

But I felt air in my lungs that hadn’t been there before.

I began small.

A silver ring shaped like a serpent winding around my finger. Nail polish applied on Sunday evenings and wiped off before Monday meetings—until one Monday I didn’t wipe it off. A thrifted blouse soft as a secret worn under my suit jacket, unseen but known.

Then art supplies appeared on my kitchen table. I told myself it was stress relief. I hadn’t painted since childhood, when teachers gently suggested I focus on “more practical pursuits.” Now color poured out of me like a confession.

I painted curls as galaxies. I painted figures mid-spin, skirts made of fire. I painted a girl dragging a chair beneath a mirror too high for her, climbing up anyway.

The more I painted, the less I could pretend.

One evening, staring at a canvas splattered in gold and indigo, I realized something simple and destabilizing: I was not broken. I was bored. Bored of pretending. Bored of compressing joy into something palatable.

The next Shabbat, instead of sitting rigidly in the men’s section, I focused on the melody. The notes felt fluid, unconcerned with gender. I closed my eyes and let my voice rise to its natural pitch. It wavered at first, then steadied.

No one turned around.

The sky did not collapse.

I began hosting dinners in my apartment—initially under the pretense of networking. Artists, activists, curious wanderers. We ate jachnun and pasta on mismatched plates. I asked everyone to share one thing they had once been shamed for and now secretly loved.

A man admitted he still slept with a stuffed animal. A woman confessed she loved fantasy novels. A nonbinary poet described the thrill of wearing glitter to the grocery store.

When it was my turn, I hesitated. The old instinct to minimize flickered.

“I was told I was too feminine,” I said finally. “Too dramatic. Too much.”

“And?” someone asked gently.

“And I think I might be exactly enough.”

They raised their glasses. It was not dramatic. It was not revolutionary. But it was the first time I said it in public.

Transition is often portrayed as spectacle. Mine felt like alignment.

I let my curls grow fuller. I stopped flattening them. I experimented with eyeliner—crooked at first, then deliberate. I practiced walking not like a boy avoiding suspicion but like a person arriving.

I told my parents over tea. My mother listened quietly, fingers tracing the rim of her cup. When I finished, she sighed—not in disappointment, but in recalibration.

“You were always different,” she said. “I just didn’t know how to protect you.”

It was not a perfect acceptance. It was not a cinematic embrace. But it was a beginning.

Some friends disappeared. Invitations slowed. A few acquaintances sent long messages about tradition and disappointment. I read them, felt the sting, and then deleted them.

Space cleared.

In that space, something vibrant grew.

I traveled for the first time without itinerary—just a carry-on suitcase and a sketchbook. In Morocco, I watched women braid each other’s hair in market stalls and felt kinship in the rhythm of their hands. In Berlin, I visited a queer art collective and saw paintings that refused apology. In Tel Aviv, I danced at a beach gathering, curls damp with saltwater, laughter rising unfiltered.

Each city handed me a mirror, and in each one, I looked more like myself.

The first time I introduced myself publicly as Cleopatra, it was at a small gallery show. My artwork hung on white walls—curls in motion, transfemme figures luminous against dark backdrops.

A curator approached, smiling. “And you are?”

I could have defaulted to the name printed on my birth certificate. The old reflex hovered.

Instead, I extended my hand.

“Cleopatra.”

The word landed cleanly.

Later that evening, a teenager lingered near one of my paintings—a portrait of a young person standing defiantly in front of a too-tall mirror.

“I didn’t know we could look like that,” they whispered.

We.

The syllable threaded through me like light.

“You can look however you want,” I told them. “The mirror adjusts.”

They laughed softly, uncertain but hopeful.

That was the moment I understood: my life was not just escape. It was invitation.

Re-entering Jewish spaces as myself felt daunting at first. I expected whispers. I prepared rebuttals.

Instead, I found something subtler.

At a queer-friendly Shabbat gathering, I lit candles in a flowing blouse and gold hoops. The flames flickered against my eyeliner. I recited the blessing, voice steady.

The ancient words did not reject me. They wrapped around me like they always had.

Afterward, a rabbi approached—progressive, thoughtful. “Your art,” he said, “it feels deeply Jewish.”

I laughed. “Even the glitter?”

“Especially the glitter.”

I began collaborating with community organizers—hosting workshops on identity and creativity. We spoke about Mizrahi heritage, about curls as inheritance, about neurodivergence as a different rhythm rather than a defect.

I stopped apologizing for thinking sideways. My mind, once criticized as scattered, became my greatest asset—connecting ideas others overlooked, weaving tradition with transformation.

The more I occupied space, the less I feared it.

One afternoon, I visited my childhood home. The mirror still hung too high.

I dragged the old desk chair across the carpet out of habit, then paused.

I didn’t need it anymore.

I stood flat on the floor, meeting my reflection at eye level.

Curls free. Lipstick intentional. Shoulders relaxed. No hat.

For a moment, I saw every version of myself layered together—the frightened boy, the quiet student, the person whispering Cleopatra into an empty room.

“I’m here,” I told them.

The room felt lighter.

My chosen family grew organically—artists, activists, neighbors who valued authenticity over conformity. We celebrated holidays together, blending Yemenite melodies with pop anthems. We debated, laughed, cried.

On my birthday, they surprised me with a cake iced in gold letters: WHOLE LOTTA WOMAN.

I laughed until I cried.

Later that night, after everyone left, I stood alone in my apartment, candles burned low. I caught my reflection in the window—city lights behind me like a constellation.

There is a particular kind of peace that comes not from perfection but from coherence. From living without splitting yourself into acceptable fragments.

I still encounter ignorance. I still feel the old reflex to shrink when someone stares too long. But now I recognize it as memory, not mandate.

I choose differently.

I choose myself.

At my largest exhibition yet, the gallery buzzed with conversation. My newest piece hung at the center—a self-portrait, curls ablaze, one hand adjusting a crown shaped like intertwined payot.

The placard read simply:

Cleopatra Mizrahi.

No disclaimers. No footnotes.

As guests moved through the room, I stepped back and observed. A group of Orthodox women discussed color theory near one canvas. A queer couple held hands openly by another. My mother stood quietly in front of the self-portrait, eyes shining.

When our gazes met, she nodded.

Not approval. Recognition.

The girl who once dragged a chair beneath a mirror had grown taller than she imagined.

Near closing time, the teenager from my first show approached again—now with bolder eyeliner, curls half-dyed blue.

“You were right,” they said. “The mirror adjusts.”

I smiled.

Outside, the night air felt electric. My friends spilled onto the sidewalk, arms linked, debating where to eat. Someone suggested dancing. Someone else suggested shawarma.

I laughed, voice bright, unlowered.

Years ago, I thought freedom would feel like rebellion. Instead, it feels like breath.

When I return home, I light two candles on the kitchen counter. The flames reflect in the window, doubling themselves. I whisper the blessing, then add my own quiet affirmation.

“I’m a whole lotta woman.”

Not because a pop star once said it.

Because I lived long enough to believe it.

And this time, when I look in the mirror, nothing in me asks to be smaller.

The hat is gone.

The curls are magnificent.

The envelope is open.

And I am exactly, abundantly, gloriously enough.

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