Mariama Pouye
a twelve year old girl reads books filled with twelve year old girls
who do not notice themselves.
sitting alone in a warm cafe,
she feels longing for the first time.
a fifteen year old girl walks to her car at night
fearing the tracking gaze of a passing man,
wondering if she’d fear its absence even more.
a seventeen year old girl learns of dr t.j. eckleburg
and finally has a name for her exhaustion.
margaret atwood says that you are a woman,
with a man inside,
watching a woman.
audre lorde says that if you are not
defining yourself for yourself,
you are being eaten alive.
a magazine I read in middle school says that nothing tastes as good
as skinny feels.
all I know is that when I picture bliss, it looks like a girl who doesn’t know what she looks like.
Mariama Pouye is a writer from Jacksonville, Florida. She believes that pure happiness is melted brie on an apple.
