no one warned the little girls one

no one warned the little girls

sometimes, they will not be
enough. sometimes, they will want to fall
into the spaces between words like knives, because words
cut
like broken mirror glass
and the spaces in between are just white and blank,
numb like hospital beds and small round pills
and you can float in them for a while, a coma of nothing
because sometimes nothing will have to be
enough.

no one warned the little girls

sometimes, the lucky one
is not the one with diamonds and rubies
tumbling from her flower lips.
the sister who spits bugs and snakes
doesn't have to live with them inside herself
anymore.
she can speak their name
and set them free.

no one warned the little girls

sometimes, they will love someone else
in swishing skirts
with braided hair
you never know how many monsters
lurk in the spaces underneath our skin
until you walk hand in hand
with another
little girl.

no one warned the little girls

sometimes, they will love someone else
with an easy smile and easy eyes
that some locks accept every key
some lips open for any
tongue.

no one warned the little girls

sometimes, loving one person
is hard enough.
loving everyone
is next to
impossible.
but no one else will do it.
so they must.

even when the words like knives
try to cut the love from their hearts.

even when the spaces between them
become an addiction.

even when they try to speak up
and the snakes in their stomach slither away
and only diamonds and rubies choke forth
from their lips.

even when their lovers are mutilated
by the monsters crawling out from underneath
their mothers' fingernails.
or put back together
by the glue of someone else's spit

no one else will do it
so little girls must

but no one warned them they'd have to.