take me to neverland

I feel like a time traveler: June, July, August. Summer dissolves in my mouth and I can’t remember what it tasted like.

That girl is a gunshot.  They say it like they’re surprised. But what do they know of teenage girls? Of blood oaths beneath pinky swears, razorblades hidden underneath powderpuffs, night nights and sleep tights uttered moments before nightmares are written in diaries. It’s the worst time of your life, if you do it right. Because teenage girls don’t have friends, they have gangs. They don’t have gossip, they have leverage. Concealer can hide a multitude of sins the morning after. These girls are actors, performing in the role of the perfect little girl. The mask will fall one day, but right now, they’re word-perfect. So by day they jump rope, sing sweetly, whisper and chatter, play and work on math equations so they can go to prom. In the shadows, by night, by hook or by crook they: scream until their throats bleed to announce their arrival to a cruel world. They puke themselves pretty, and fight on a battleground made of their mind. They dance the way the movie stars do, and learn their power can be in a cruel jab, or the fluttering of an eyelash. These girls are dangerous. And they’re beautiful. But mostly, they are young.

Girls like her were born in a storm. They have lightning in their souls, Thunder in their hearts, and chaos in their bones.

i. her name is WAR. once upon a time, her voice was the sound of bayonets, of cavalry - now, it’s a whisper in the right ear, hesitant fingers pulling a very different trigger. ii. her name is FAMINE. children hold out their hands and beg for scraps while her belly grows full and round, never starved but never satisfied - would you like fries with that? iii. her name is PESTILENCE. she sits alone at hospital bedsides, silent amid the frantic beeping of IV monitors and life support machines, cold hands soothing against clammy skin. iv. her name is DEATH. these days, she drives a burnt-out red mustang and looks like the faces of everyone you used to know, and she’s hungry. her teeth shine in the darkness. god, she’s hungry.