For Young Girls Who Feel Like They Need To Be Someone Other Than Themselves

By

Dear young girls,

Young girl, only thirteen, with converse on her feet,
She’s unable to understand what it means to be ‘you’.
All around her are signs of what is cool.
Magazine pages on her floor, cut outs of what she needs to be.
Making her feel lost and confused; what should she be?
Her friends, since they were four, are changing too.

She stands alone, trying to be herself; she is torn down.

Young girl, only sixteen, with a face full of make up,
She’s trying to be older, but feels still a kid.
All the other girls are dressed the same, but she’s wearing the wrong shoes.
They are all trying to look like build-board models with hour-glass shapes, but that’s not how they’re built.

She stands with them, feeling like an outsider; she doesn’t know who she is.

Young girl, only twenty, she doesn’t know herself.
She’s unable to recognize the person staring back at her in the mirror.
She was built exactly how they had intended her to be.
Feeling lost and confused in who she turned out to be,
Judging herself and her peers, that’s how it goes.

She stands wondering if this is what being a girl means; it doesn’t feel right.

Young girl, now twenty four, is not so young anymore.
She’s completely lost, always needing to be liked, and meeting other’s standards.
Made from all those magazine pieces; she is the girl she never wanted to be.
Lost and confused in who she is in this world,
She strips herself of all the expectation and popularity.

She is done being a girl she is not.