girls. girls.

✗she learnt✗

at thirteen:
she learns that her scarred wrist
was beginning to replace her smiles.
her bubblegum mouth was full of
words she didn't mean.



at fourteen:
she learnt that the shadows on her
curtains were the footprints of a
past she left behind in her home
country before she draped a
dotted flag around herself.



at fifteen:
she met a boy whose heartstrings
were the chords of a guitar and his
heartbeats were the lullabies that
put herself to the dreamlessness
of sleep.

at sixteen:
his kisses tasted like strawberry
and she didn't feel any pain when
he clutched her heart in his
bare hands.

at seventeen:
he seemed distant now;
his bloodied knuckles against
the door she slammed
sounded like sirens.

at eighteen:
she learnt that she should
have loved herself first.
with his smell hinged in the air
and his touch carved into her
spines, she wished she would
finally forget the boy with
the pearly smile she met
two summers ago.

at nineteen:
her veins bleed sorrow as
she fills her empty heart
by chugging her tears down.

at twenty:
she realized that she has
been the biggest fool in love.

at twenty-one:
the teenage heartbreak that
had her down on her knees
taught that you have to love
every piece of yourself
before giving them to
someone else.