Young Girls

Hey. You are walking down the blue road and the rest of the world hangs on a billboard up above. Highway bright. The pretty lights. The seven-foot smiles. You’re dragging your feet down here, looking up at life. Waving. You’re too small for anyone to see you, though. Your hand hurts from saying, hello. Hello. That’s how lonely you must feel most of the time. Nothing fills the emptiness. You’ve tried the orange, the blue, the white, the purple, the green, the yellow pills.

            It’s why by the time you’re thirteen years old, you’re in love with rainbows and have killed yourself a thousand times. You search for help in cartons of chocolate milk and bathroom mirrors. But no one sees you yet and you can’t see yourself. You’re a ghost. Everyone sees through you, is fascinated by your whispers and groans. You’re like a butterfly that everyone wants to touch. Stick pins through your skin. Spread you open. Let you suffocate under glass.

            I know about you, even though you are all secrets. You are dangerous, eating flowers when no one is looking. Riding on the backs of wolves, slurping soda through peppermint-striped straws. Practicing shaving your legs with whipped cream.

            There is a slight moment of your pretty lives—the subtle pinprick in fairytales, when you can experience the whole world all at once. How hard that must be, to see every flaw knowing that everyone is waiting for you to cross over to this grownup side in order to make you less terrifying. You have to hurry up and harden those soft bones; but some of you little girls want to stay musty and dangerous. Wildness is what you know. It’s not that you want to leave this earth; it’s that it hurts too much to stay and watch everyone else grow moldy and old. You boldly stare into spooky tunnels and strange car windows, knowing that darkness can swallow up anyone. After all, what’s the point? Why would you stay when you could slip out the back door, while the choice is still yours.

            In a few years, you’ll be too old and worry how the rest of us will get along without you. But right now, you’re still selfish. You can say ta-ta forever, with your flirty eyes winking so bright.