i will always interrupt some unimportant boy
when he tries to say that i'm not like other girls
as if it's some luxurious gift
like a dozen long-stemmed roses
or a crown meant for a queen
no. wrong. i am exactly like every woman i've ever known
i am a medley of mannerisms and a patchwork of principles
that i learned and copied and adopted from all the girls who have touched my life
some permanent like tattoos and others as temporary as the frost
covering blades of grass those first cold mornings in november
my laugh is the sound i replicated from a girl i knew when i was eight
she had the best laugh i'd ever heard
no one could resist laughing along
my sister taught me my entire skincare routine
and i get to think of her every night because of it
like it's her hands on my face helping me wash my day away
my best, most ridiculous phrases and sayings all come from my mom
i can't believe i ever cringed when people told me i was just like her
as if i couldn't see her perfectly in the way my eyes crinkle when i laugh
and in the darkest part of the night, i hear my best friend
as she whispers stories about the strongest girl she knows
to help me chase all my fears away
every breath in my lungs is her
i love women.
the ones i talk to every day
and see when i scroll on tiktok
and knew when we were nothing but girls on the playground
before we knew love and heartbreak
before we learned how to grow wings
how lucky are we to live in this time of history
when womanhood is celebrated
when the girls who build each other up are revered
and those who tear others down are reviled
i don't know exactly when the narrative changed
i can remember loudly hating pink as a child
and saying that i just got along with boys better
and pretending i didn't break when those girls called me fat
i don't know when it changed
but thank god it did
About the Creator
Mallory Rose
Writing to create, to grow, to confront, to become, to heal.
Keep reading
More stories from Mallory Rose and writers in Poets and other communities.
a love story, post-mortem. Runner-Up in Instructions for Disappearing Challenge.
hold him as tightly as he holds you as if letting go would extinguish stars and rewrite constellations and make the world go dark wrap around him like vine and ivy, even as he rips out your petals—he loves me, he loves me not—and digs up your roots he'll become a stranger overnight, one that exists only to lie and cheat, to maim you and brutalize you and destroy you but keep holding on, a cruel game of tug of war, muscles screaming and rope ripping skin off calloused palms send texts, paragraph after paragraph, begging for explanation, for closure, for respect or kindness or humanity get cold, heartless, one-word replies from an interloper wearing the skin of the man who once told you that you were the sun unwrap the lies of unconditional forever that he spent endless nights braiding into your hair and painting on your skin stop eating when food tastes like the cremated remains of the person you were before when you were one heart in two bodies his family—your family for eight years—they'll leave too without a goodbye, proving you're just crumpled garbage, a soggy cigarette butt in a gutter pluck clumps of tangled hair out of shower drains as your chapped lips bleed and your brittle bones crumble to dust realize too late that you're becoming shadow and smoke and try to grasp those missing tendrils of your soul as fiercely as you once held him you almost make it, broken glass gathered in bloody palms, when you see that picture of him with the girl, the one who faked friendship to cover jealousy get swept away, spin-cycling in a violent wave of pain and betrayal, smashed against jagged cliffs, eroding and melting and drowning in polluted, oil slick waters let the seaweed tangle around your legs and pull you deep, like the vine you used to be when you grew only around him like a twisted baptism, the water will cleanse you, stitching split skin with barbed wire, erasing memories and identity and the stamp of him embossed on your soul, and finally—finally—you let go who are you? where are you? what are you? nothing.
By Mallory Rose5 months ago in Poets
Comments (13)
Wooohooooo congratulations on your honourable mention! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
What a great poem about womanhood, how, while we are different, we are still the same. We share some of the same joys and struggles, and we are made up of the people who have come into our lives. Congrats on the Top Story!
I love the ending. I can relate so much to this poem ❤️
Beautiful prose, liked the temporary as frost part!
temporary as the frost ... beautifully expressed.
Wonderfully put. The transition from the early 2000's to now is a chasm of growth, and one I celebrate wholeheartedly! Your poem is uplifting and a treasure.
You got me at the phrase "some unimportant boy". Congratulations on Top Story
Congratulations on the top Story
this is so amazing. I love everything about this - how you think of all the people in your life because of everyday routines. This is just plain marvelous. congratulations on TS.
I love that you pay homage to the various people in your life that have affected you, making you who you are today. Very well done.
You have such a beautiful way of honoring the women--the girls--who molded you into the woman that you are. It is wonderful that we are now seeing womanhood/girlhood as an empowering thing instead of as something weak, and you can feel that power in every line of your poem. Well done.
The way you wove in those little details from laughter to skincare to sayings from your mum makes it so heartfelt.
Thissssss. Perfect.