growing into myself, sprouting outwards towards the sky, girlhood has always been an anchor of mine. i love being a woman, i love the unspoken rules we have, i love the gentle nature we possess, i love that we have something sacred, something not many others can understand. i love how intersectional we can be, how loving we are. i love our radical tenderness. 

i gave her a pad and helped her fix her hair despite hearing her call me mean names behind my back. i think i’m real cool, in my shoplifted nail polish and stolen makeup. tampons from girls i barely know in my bag and hair ties from girls i don’t like so much anymore on my wrist that i’ve somehow had for years. she asks me if i could lend her one, i guess it has a new home now. i feel like i take up too much space and dance badly in my room when nobody’s watching. i apply makeup so that i feel like art and sing into a mascara bottle back at my reflection every morning. i paint my nails with my best friend and help clean hers up too, even if that ruins mine. i think that taylor swift might be one of the most profound people and greatest minds of the 21st century and i’m convinced that she’d be my best friend if she got to know me. i dream big, and scream lyrics at concerts. my dear friend calls me in tears over a boy. i console her, reassuring her that he just could never understand our radical soul magic and that he isn’t as deeply and all encompassingly intentional as we are while eating chocolate in my bed. i smile way too hard and stop everything i’m doing if the sunset looks pretty so that i can take a picture of it and hope with all of my heart that i never miss another one ever again. despite the pain- i am real- i am young- all is fine. i scrunch my nose at the boring adults that no longer smile at the sky and whisper to myself  “please please please let me keep my youth with age” until it becomes a chorus, my heartbeat as the bridge. i call mean girls ugly and panic too much and make playlists about everything so that the feelings i have never fade away and can be revived once i press play. i wish i looked different and my best friend does too, i wish we were each other, i wish we could see ourselves like we see everyone else, i wish to never stop wishing. we listen to bikini kill and feel wild and indulge in the joy that comes with finishing one another's' sentences. we are one. 

we are girlhood and we are made of stardust.