𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗱𝘆𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘆.

1. ┊ ✧. "𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐝": 𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝

i read somewhere on the vast plane we call the internet something along the lines of "godhood is just as terrifying and symbolic as girlhood: a begging to be believed". a sentence has never resonated more with me than this one. i have never felt such a connection with a bunch of words lined together like these fourteen words before. they delved deep into my soul and caught a sight of me i had never seen, ripping out my lungs and heart, passing through my guts and bones, and finally reaching the surface of my body. they waved in front of my face what i had been hiding for so long: "look! it's yours!". and it was the death of me—seeing this nearly-passing piece of myself, something i had kept in utmost secrecy for eons, but something i had fed regardless of how much i craved to make it unknown. girlhood is but a way to beg, but a way to supplicate to be understood (or at least placed trust upon one's word, for no one truly understands us).

another piece of poetry that i stumbled upon as i read about girlhood was by ashe vernon and it went as something like this: isn't this anger of mine so hideous? and isn't it "of mine", regardless? "good god, isn't it mine?". enraged, furious, disorderly women—i speak for you. i am the irate girl, the crazy ex-girlfriend, the anarchic woman. from a youthful age, i would withstand whichever box men would try to fit me in (and women who catered to men's desires would, too). immaturely i thought, yet, that "defying the standard" meant "taunting what I knew to be acceptable". i reckoned that i would gain people's respect if i refused to wear a dress, if i rejected the color pink, if i told myself i was "not like other girls" (for i thought myself to be superior to them) and repeated that sexist rhetoric to both men and women my age and not. however unripe that discourse was, i found peace in it, for it meant i would be finally free from the shackles imposed upon my childlike body.

or did it?

did it truly mean i would be unfettered from what manacled me? or would I just be yielding to another man's perspective of "what is acceptable"? the male gaze—that's what you call it. that's what you call the accommodation of women within what men expect of them (not just aesthetically, as it is commonly perceived). and it's more than just what social media deems to be the "male gaze". that's what you call fitting into a model of masculinity in order to be accepted as such. modern-day, mainstream feminism is necessary, but it appeals to men and masculinity more often than not. take for example businesswomen: they are expected to sit atop a throne and act just as oppressive and "girlboss-esque" as men are. girlhood, going back to the matter at hand, is but a transitory period of finding new ways to fit into the dichotomy of "will i be a girly girl?" or "will i become a tomboy?", not realizing this is what chains us in the first place.

in sally wen mao's "mad honey symposium", she asks for more pyromaniac urges. if i could start my girlhood over, i'd ask for more chaos and havoc, more flames atop a burning car, more skies being torn asunder, ripped apart like frail paper. i'd ask for paper cuts on fragile skin, i'd ask for raging seas and winds fast as cheetahs. i'd ask to be the "calm before the storm", to be the ruins of a dead love, to be the blaze alit. however much i've done all this, it was not enough. i need to be more disruptive, to be less calm and collected. for when you are a troublesome child, they teach you to become a tamed adult. and, when you are a quiet kid, life teaches you to become ear-piercing. we can never have it all, now, can we?

florence welch's song "dream girl evil" says it all: to be a woman is to be good. to have red lips, rosy cheeks and all the love to give. to be thunderous in a world filled with serenity is to be sick, mad. there is a mighty danger in having people think you're "nice". as the songwriter herself said in an interview, getting "you're an angel" seems like such a high place to fall from. there is some sort of wicked release in messy, terribly-behaved women in general and young women specifically—"to not have to try and survive by being good".

η Οδύσσεια━━𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗢𝗗𝗬𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗬.

@𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗘𝗠𝗦. ;; october 15th, 2022