they just didn’t expect much out of us. a generation of girls who were born in skins that didn’t fit right, that itched or ached or hung off of our waists. we remember snap bracelets. we remember crop tops. we remember britney kissing madonna.
and when we grew up, we took into ourselves the image of a fist. i watched us learn to defend each other so fiercely that there was never again anything like it. my father once told me that a man’s place is to protect. he has never seen a teenage girl stand up for her best friends.
we ripped the spine out of the thing. we woke up with mouths full of blood and we spat it out on the concrete and drew murals in it and said: look. blood. look. we’ve been roasting in this.
a litany for a new age, for us quiet ones who feel the call of the wild inside of our lungs:
thank you, alex, who took her skin and slid it around until it was the right one, thank you, the scars on my knees from dive-tackling somebody who called her a “him”, thank you, our friendship, thank you for returning the favor and punching my high school bully,
thank you pretty girls with more to them than being pretty, who sobbed on my shoulders about big things and who painted each other’s nails and who braided each other’s hair and who cared, so much, so often, about wage gaps and party lines and forest ecology, thank you for teaching me everybody is pretty no matter how much they think they’re ugly,
thank you every girl i ever kissed, thank you every girl who taught me to be okay with this, thank you every person who stood outside with a picket, thank you for painting rainbows on your cheeks, for holding my hand, for saying, “we’re gonna get through this,”
thank you, me, for turning our skin inside out but still staying, still staying, no matter how often we tried to leave us for someplace distant, thank you, every person who is still breathing, thank you, those of you who scars who approach others with red marks and ask if they’re falling apart
thank you girls “with curves” like me, with rolls on our hips, with fire in our teeth, with hours of self-hating finally turned into a masterpiece, thank you selfies, thank you body positivity,
thank you girls of color for teaching me that my daddy’s Cuban blood is not muddy, thank you for fighting, thank you for standing up no matter how many people you carry on your shoulders,
thank you, the word “bitch,” thank you for turning into “beast mode,“ into “damn straight,” thank you, all you out there who were called a bitch just for saying: don’t you dare touch her, don’t talk to her, don’t try and take her, don’t look at her like that, don’t say that ever again, don’t bother her or i promise you’re about to be bothered by me.
thank you for being. thank you for us. thank you for being my leaders, my air support, my cavalry.
oh, yes, we’ve grown up now. we’re castles, we’re our own team of knights, we’re willing to shove our hands deep and pull out the sinew.
we remember the shit you put us through. we won’t let it continue.
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
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