Boys Will Be Boys

October 5, 2018

I saw my face when I woke up one morning all brand new.
My hair was long; it wasn’t before.
My face was sharper, all that baby fat just gone.
My voice held something sweet,
right from my mouth yet I couldn’t taste it.
I couldn’t pin it down.

What can the men that hang around the parking lot see that I can’t?
I was born yesterday,
but now my lips are swollen; that’s it.
Like a virgin-
sized up for the very first time.

They all look the same to me,
the men who come up to me in the grocery store,
who yell after me as I duck into the soup aisle,
and the ones on the stand,
at the press conference.

They say ‘boys will be boys,’
so as a thirteen-year-old girl
I looked in the mirror and realized
I would have to watch my back.

 


Michelle Moroses is a teenage writer and poet from the Jersey Shore. Her hobbies include respecting and supporting women.

Photo by Ruvim Noga.

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