Girlhood

by Ria Minhas

Girlhood is butterflies and flower stud earrings

It’s pinky promises and tiny buckles on tiny Mary Jane shoes

It’s pinks and purples (but secretly, blues and greens)

Girlhood is walking past the camisoles in favor of the oh so grown-up training bras

It’s sneaking mascara and lip gloss into the school bathroom,

and rubbing it off before going home

It’s having your first kiss on a dare while sitting in the grass at recess,

As your friends giggle off in the distance.

Girlhood means watching the older girls and idolizing their every movement

Copy and paste their speech and style onto yourself,

Shortening skirts and straightening hair

Wearing your mom’s heels and wobbling around your room

Girlhood is catcalls.

It’s “hey baby” and “smile more,”

It’s pepper spray and mace and keys between knuckles

Girlhood is sneaking out of bedroom windows,

Going on high-speed joy rides with the older boys from school

It’s drinking beers in an open field with your friends

Because what else is there to do in a small town?

It’s spending hours with boys inside cars parked at the edges of empty lots,

Seeing them two months later at the bar,

Their hand creeping onto the lower back of a girl from another school,

And pretending you never knew them. 

It’s holding back hair as your friends vomit Tito’s and regret into a bathroom stall toilet

Before going back out and dancing to Abba

With the girls who let you borrow a lip liner,

The ones who slurred through compliments of “so gorgeous” and “wayyy better than him!”

Girlhood is screaming matches with your mother

Ripping your throat raw with words like broken glass and sharp nails

It’s praying you never grow up to be like her,

Crow's feet and silvery hair,

Tired and miserable and wishing you did more.

It’s wanting to leave this stupid town

To go somewhere far and exciting,

Like New York City and Los Angeles and Paris.

It’s wanting freedom, to fly away and never come back.

Girlhood is wishing for womanhood,

And womanhood is realizing girlhood never actually ended

That deep down, under the lipstick and perfumes,

There will always be butterflies and flower stud earrings.