Girlhood is accepting the Rot.

Muck-worn and softened bones,

Ragged tears at your fingertips and elbows,

Coagulated blood saturates long knotted hair.

Girlhood is wretched impermanence.

You too will be swallowed up by the ground someday.

You cannot be beautiful forever.

Your hard work and determination is senseless to the grime,

To the Rot.

Girlhood is being propelled off harsh cliffs of conditional acceptance.

Learn you have wings,

Allow them to be clipped,

Pretend you’re safer that way.

Girlhood is howling at the moon like the wild beast you are,

But always look over your shoulder.

You know what it means to be hunted,

Followed.

You cannot escape the Rot.

Girlhood is fascination with stories of people who wrapped themselves up in their beds,

Stayed there until the fly larvae had come and gone;

Recognize the decomposition soaking into the mattress,

Do not flinch at the skin melded to the bed springs.

Girlhood is screaming viciously at the heart-bursting horror of it all,

Throat torn,

Mouth agape.

See the hollow terror in the eyes of your sisters,

Rot lingering behind them in the abscess of their minds.

-Whitey Phillips