There is something captivating about being a teenage girl.
No one cares,
but everyone does.
They’d like to see your pain,
because what is a teenage girl without struggle?
Getting you out of that misery is the part forgotten.
In your teenage years,
you become tired of everything.
School, family, life.
You deign to imagine a world without hurt,
left alone in your bathtub at 3 in the morning,
blaring music into your ears.
Solitude in the mess of your room seems to be a treasure,
and sitting in the back of the classroom on your computer is time well spent.
I don’t know what you’re hiding from.
Is it the fear of what will happen,
or is it the fear of knowing?
Knowing what you could truly do
is the greatest gift given to woman.

Moments ago,
you tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around,
and you asked me, “what’s wrong?”
My life is missing this intangible quality that will make it whole.
A puzzle piece to the puzzle, if you will.
I need to reach out and grab it before it moves too far away,
before it will just slip out my fingers.
There isn’t anything I can do to find out what this is,
so I… write.
I write, and I write, and I write
about
my feelings
and the pizza I had two days ago
and a movie I saw with a friend
and my mother’s pain
and my father’s pain
and Eleanor Rigby
and flag football
and Grand Central Station
and poetry itself.
Might these details be the quality of life I am searching for,
the piece to the grand, overall puzzle?
Might each little thing in my life add to culture, beauty, existence, and happiness altogether?

“Nothing, why?”