She looked at them and knew she had to change.
Listening to them, she felt she had to conform.
The girls were talented pretenders.
They forgot all about the pain.
Their violence veiled with a smile.
Blasphemers.
Killing the child inside of her making her a woman.
An adolescent.
She’s frightened, locks herself up behind bathroom doors.
Their heinous gaze penetrates the walls.
The harshest critics playing the game.
Pretty ugly girls are giving her directions.
They don’t want her to get home safely.
She’s a whore who doesn’t talk.
Her skin is easy to attack because she is unsheltered.
She puts on red lipstick, cruelty.
She baptises her neck with sharp perfume, excommunication.
Adulterers surround her like pismires.
The father lets her vanish into the night.
Chasing ghosts after midnight.
Beneath the blasphemous streetlight.
They steal her money as her lips redden.
And the sadness in her grows.
As she hears herself cry deep inside.
Her purse’s contents are spread all across the bench.
She doesn’t count.
Nobody cares because of the way she looks.
The girls of the morning talk and spatter.
Her best friend joins them because she’s weak.
And can’t resist the pressure.
She is forced to take a side.
Reputation is all that matters.
And so she is left on her own.
The taste of the previous night, acidic.
He is gone. Victorious behind the wall of girls.
She is hurt and doesn’t know who she is.
How to recover from rejection and expulsion?
Words haunt her. Whispers are whiplashing waves behind her back.
She brought this upon herself.
Drifting off in the bus until spitballs hit her hair. Entanglement.
She locks herself up and disappears into a world that nobody sees.
They will never understand her.
Nobody dares to put themselves in her shoes.
She doesn’t count.
Crying is a habit that brings her peace.
The dead listen to her.
She writes to them.
And they reply as she turns off all the lights.
RECITAL BY CROQUE-MELPOMENE ON YOUTUBE
Croque-Melpomene 