My doctor says that I'm too fat
He never stops his barking
He may be right at the end of the day
But despite it all I'm starving

I have a hole inside me
I used to quell with spirits
I stopped but they still haunt me
They'll **** me, so I fear it

******* used to cure this all
but no one could keep up
then one day I felt all yucky
abandoned all pursuits of "love"

I had a year way back when
Where all I did was party
I stuck weird things up my nose
But I ran out of money

When I was a teenager
my dad called me a *****
I got upset and cut myself
but quickly I grew bored

I drove fast around tight corners
to feel the breeze on warm damp nights
but today behind a wheel
I feel paralyzed

My doctor says to stab myself
so I don't eat too much
maybe if I'm smaller
I won't cringe when I am touched

But even as I sit here
and to food I feel averse
I know deep down inside myself
I'll always have this curse

I wonder what I'll crave now
these meds they make me sick
maybe just attention
will be how I get my kicks

I was once the right shape
it wasn't long ago
and even then I noticed
how people come and go

Will I ever feel full
to the wind I'm *******
I take up all this space
and still there's something missing

I am woman
But I am not
Where there should be flower
there's **** and rot
I should be girl
So that you can nut
I should serve you ***** but never ****
I should be smaller
I shouldn't be louder
I should nibble and never devour
I should be young
I should do that forever
I should be stupid so you can be clever
I should *******
But I should be pure
I shouldn't **** him though
that makes me a *****
I should be bald from the neck down
I shouldn't call you when I break down
I should be nice
I should be meek
I shouldn't cry and I shouldn't leak
I shouldn't scream
I shouldn't hiss
I should not explain why I still flinch
I should whisper
I shouldn't joke
Like every girl I should like being choked
I should be by design
I should be like a doll
I should know how to curl up in a ball

I'm somebody's daughter
Made of sugar and gasoline 
I wash away the filth until I bleed 
Desperate to be clean

I'm somebody's daughter

A small and hungry crime scene 
Made of guilt and strawberry cream 
But I never cry in my dreams

I'm somebody's daughter

Trying to become untaught 
They love the sound of sorry 
Even when they know I'm not


Sincerely, someone's daughter

days crawl by
and humidity stills the air.
the black flies are late this season,
though around here, most things are.
below the gnat line, girls like me
seldom get to die easily,
perfumed powders
masking the scent of illness,
flushed cheeks and damp foreheads donned
as our feeble bodies recline on fainting couches
to delicately languish away. we know that
there’s a certain beauty to decomposition,
to fungus gnats invading potted soil,
to fruit flies nesting in sink drains. we know that
rotting is a clock that never stops,
tallying each unflinching, humid second while the
days crawl by.

I look at her
and see
the beginnings of
myself,
and is that not something
worth celebrating?

there is nothing i love more
than being
a girl
i love the way i speak,
with slang only teenage girls use
i love wearing dainty clothes,
feeling beautiful wearing them
i love collecting,
knick-knacks, records, crystals
above all
i love
the wonder of girlhood
romanticizing my life
perceiving my monotonous existence,
as a life worth writing about

The soft edges of femininity,
Round, *******, complements,
Heels, ***** of the feet, sockets,

Soft eyes, soft hearts, soft hands
Tinkering, thanking, crossing, legs.

Girlhood is enclosed in a silver box
With mute pastels and a heavy soundtrack of strings,

Strings which bifurcate, dissect, divulge,
Horrors, bells, instruments and lush melodies.

Girlhood smells of iron, hot animals, heaving,
Converging, pin ******, the sharp alacrity of Knowing.

Eyes are wet, armpits go black , round edges
Protrude into a potbelly, grow and stagnate,
expand and collapse.

Back then at school,
We had life-skills-
Every week we would be taught, the girls,
Handicrafts by a gentle, lady-like woman.
They taught us macramé, well after it went out of style.
How to unravel and tie-up spools and spools of thread-
Into fancy knots and whirls.
You could hang it on your ceiling
Just beneath the fan, or over your bed.

Then there was the letter box,
Made out of cardboard and wrapping paper.
But not to hang outside, of course.
The glue would dissolve in the rain water.
And the letters would all cry out in jets of blue ink.

Speaking of ink, we made a miniscule brush
Out of old, old pens
And human hair.
It measured about four inches
And you could clean the ridges between tiles
With it,
or brush your moustache
if you had one.
The class was always there
You couldn’t skip it, miss it or play truant.
Life-skills, you will need them when you grow
And you’ll thank me when you flaunt-
Them to your cynical mothers- in-law.

Nipuni Ranaweera

today, i wake up wearing an old band t-shirt and i’m sixteen again / pulling jumper sleeves over my palms / keeping my eyes on my feet / earphones in / willing myself invisible / refusing to step out of changing rooms in anything that clings to my skin / flinching from mirrors and cameras / nobody wants to stay too long at the beginning of a cinderella story / before the lenses and makeup and hair-flipping confidence / before the boys who call you a frigid ***** for expressing an opinion start to slide into your DMs / saying “hey, you seem cool, i’d love to hear you talk about feminism.” / but they’d love get you drunk first / love to get funny girl / cool girl / beer-pong and dancing on tables and witty comebacks / always-slipping-out-of-your-hands / let’s-tame-this-shrew-wild-girl / like yeah give this girl a stage but stop her if she makes you uncomfortable / we like a damsel-in-distress, big-blinking-eyes-trophy-wife / not the girl who stood in between her best friend and the ones who mocked her for her body / not the girl with bloodied lips instead of red lipstick / grinning, saying, “you’re going to have to go through me.” / nobody likes an ugly girl with a mouth full of words / so you learn to swallow them / be prettier, shinier, smoother / show them a piece of glass instead of dagger / lie in wait to turn the tables because you still remember / what it’s like to be sixteen and forced to look at your body as a liability / what it’s like to be sixteen and told your anger is embarrassing / just another teenage phase

there was a wolf
I tell you
sharp teeth, a stench
I tried to run I tell you
wouldn’t listen
Little girl hearts
Beat and behave like
A sparrow
leery fingers touch
Lingering wounds
don’t touch
He wouldn’t listen