The Carnivorous Nature of Girlhood

a journal entry

I am at a very cruel age. I have lived just enough to be regretful of myself. And yet, not long enough to forgive myself. 

I wish to throw my phone in the river on more days than not. To disappear and never be seen again. To never be perceived again. I wish to show my art to no one, and yet for my work to still be adored. Perhaps this echoes the way in which I wish my body could navigate the world. Unknown, unperceived, and yet… loved. 

There is something so carnivorous about girlhood. Girlhood isn’t just morning dew on flower petals, or the whispers of a fresh spring breeze. Girlhood is carnivorous. It’s blood, cracked fingernails, and bruises. Girlhood is a palpitating heartbeat. It’s murderous. A possession of an unadulterated rage brewing inside of me at the pit of my stomach. I’m not sure when this rage came to be. If I was born with it inside of me, if it grew alongside me all these years. Or if it found its way inside of me. Like some sort of parasite. Is it even rage? Or is it a deep mourning? A sadness ignored so long it has no choice but to transform into rage in order to be heard. I don’t know. But, sometimes I feel more like a monster than a girl. 

I sit in the dark and there are so many eyes. So many eyes. Staring all the time. Teeth and tongues too. Licking their lips as they stare. It’s all I’ve ever known. Even the eye of God is manifest of the ever present gaze of men. Am I the monster for feeling murderous? 

Sometimes I’m unsure if girlhood ever ends, or if it just sits inside of us forever, festering like some sort of disease. Living in our stomachs forever and making a home out of our now women-ish bodies. So many women feel they never aged past the age of eighteen. Because girlhood has a chokehold on us all. 

The trauma of girlhood adolescence is the sudden pulse of obsession. An obsession with yourself. The way you look. The way you are perceived. An obsession with your relationships with others. An obsession with the realization that your mother is just a girl like you. An obsession with the way the light punctures your kitchen windows in a way you never noticed before. An obsession with the way the air feels different in very early morning. And these obsessions haunt you for the rest of your life. 

Girls are held to this standard. The angelic youthful appeal. Yet it’s fleeting. And we know it’s fleeting. And heaven is such a high place to fall from. But we do. We fall. We fall from the angelic pedestal of girlhood. We fall and fall and fall. Sometimes it feels like flying. Maybe we are flying, I don’t know. I havn’t hit the ground yet. I do not wish for such salvation. If I can’t be saint, it’s better to be damned; for when I hit the ground will I still be loved? Will I still be loved when I am shattered, covered in blood and screaming? 

I am a lady of fantasy and horror.

Will I be loved?