i’m ready to be good again
i’m ready to be good again
By Sophia Jacqueline
i want to relish in the relics of my girlhood
that's not entirely gone
for i am not yet a woman
but i cannot be the girl
i long to be
though there are days where i can feel my girlhood as though it never left me
days where it scatters like ashes in the wind
i used to pray at night
to a god i can’t believe in
to be older and wiser and stronger
to be prettier and popular and loved
i wanted it more than anything
to be loved
i was just a girl
oh!
i was loved
they loved me
their love like knives
i learned to crave the taste of my blood dripping from their cuts
i let them shape me like clay
twist me and turn me into something new
thought i knew what i was doing
i didn’t
they loved me
until they didn’t
until they saw me for the monster i was
a Frankenstein of their own design
i wasn’t loved
they didn’t love me
anymore
so i returned to the altar of my damnation
my hand held the knife!
my blood- the sacrifice!
and i bargained again!
and they loved me!
again
but i paid the price
in scarred little white lines
and sleepless nights
i paid the price
i swore i would stop
but they loved me
they loved me
they loved
me!
but i paid the price
my girlhood gone
i wish i could say they stole it
the truth is i gave it up
willingly
i sold the thing that made me the happiest
for something i thought would be more
i sacrificed my girlhood in exchange for their love
and i can’t say i wouldn’t do it again
i would have drowned in the intoxicating liquor they fed me
i would have lived like that forever
i would have returned to that altar
my hunger unsatisfied
until i took my last breath, athame in hand
if it meant they would love me forever
i used to believe the Devil himself saved me
from my own demise
oh what a lie!
convinced he sang me sweet lullabies
to lull me to sleep
and keep me from the deep
pits of hell he called home
now i know the soul that saved me was my own
a part of me survived
those little white lines and sleepless nights
she dragged me from the inferno where i’d made my church
she gave her sacrifice- so i would survive
i survived
i cut my hair
purged myself of any remnant of the fiery creed
i once prayed to
i made a shrine to my softness- to the girl who saved me
now my hair is longer than it's ever been
i'm smiling again
and i wish i could relish in the relics of my girlhood
but i gave them all away
i'm ready to be good again
if you'll only let me
