Ode to The first day you turn pretty is the day a man in the milk aisle decides you are: a minimum shoe size reached, a body softened. He follows steps behind and steals glances each time you scan the store for your face in another. When your mother finds you, you ask her, what is the difference between wanting and being wanted? *Try to remember the rules in between keeping your hands to yourself and following the leader: skirt below your fingertips and always watch your drink. Who was it that told you boys are for doing and girls are for being done to? You wish to be older the way that construction workers’ whistles signal that you are. His sweet song forces your chest to close, and you can feel soupy mud inch its fingers and toes up to tickle you in the throat— bile threatening to split your tight-lipped gratitude. Something is burning, Or something is dancing. What does it really mean to have butterflies? You trace the new knots in your neck, the ones that seem to multiply with each hyperextension. You’ve checked the leathered backseat twice now— place your keys in the ignition. Memorize the new knots in your neck, the way you memorized the knots in the tree trunk where first crushes shoved sweaty palms beneath your shirt. Bark burning your back as he rhythmically pecked chicken feed from your lips. A giggle bubbled by your gums. Bile or Butterflies? *Read through the rules again. Look for a way to win. Realize you’ve been given a broken piece to play with. When does a girl become a woman? Is it beneath a dorm ceiling, while too drunk to remember, after cherry popped, blood-stained sheets, blood down your legs, blood on your tongue, salt, dirty salt, you taste salt, you taste dirty salt, once your lips are bitten raw, breasts! You swear you are not a child anymore. All right then, says the milk aisle man, the construction worker, your first crush, the drugstore cashier, the boy across the hall, and your friend’s father, why don’t you prove how grown up you really are?
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by Claire Gallagher
