Girlhood (Godhood)

Girlhood (Godhood)

By Ayla Bushell

Here there are no gods, 

and there are no saints. 

No heaven 

or any place where we might be redeemed.

Only fluorescent streetlights 

and the glare of the moon on rainfall: 

strange, off-center bedrooms 

lit by neon lights spelling silence 

and the mysterious appetites of teenage girls.

There is a world beyond this room; 

I have seen it— 

the blushing dawn and the gunmetal dusk.   

A light held to a girl’s face, 

shadowed before she becomes a god, 

bloodied in her innocence. 

Somewhere she rises up from the concrete, bruised,

into a primordial twilight. 

Somewhere she hungers 

and turns stars into supernovas. 

Somewhere the gods fall 

and the moon sinks as the sun spills ichor

from her veins. 

Somewhere a girl sits in her room

and aches.