"Ode to Teenage Girlhood" by Ruby Luhrman
My girlhood is in
shredded cuticles
and torn notebook pages.
Ballads in my room
where rituals take place
and the ground is littered in relics.
It’s when I’m
chanting and scheming
under the covers,
loathing myself until I am
obsessed with myself;
obsessed with myself until I am my God,
then preparing to detest myself
all over again.
Anthemic in essence.
I abhor being a teenage girl so much
that I worship it.
I despise it with such intensity
that I crave it.
The fixation burrows inside of my tissue
and eats away at my flesh
until I am rotten on the inside.
Until I am hollow and filthy.
I await adulthood impatiently,
yet I want to remain this way forever --
stained cheeks and sallow eyes;
hot skin and fiery voice.
And one day she will be gone
and I will be left to remember her.
And in my remembering
I will mourn her over and over again
for her lies and for her golden hair.
Ruby Luhrman is 16 years old; she lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and she attends Waynflete School in Portland, Maine. Ruby states that she has loved writing and reading ever since she was little. When she is not reading or writing, she is probably spending time with her friends, family, and cat. “Poetry,” Ruby writes, “has been such a liberating force through the trials and tribulations of growing up.”