I saw my face when I woke up one morning all brand new.
My hair was long; it wasn’t before.
My face was sharper, all that baby fat just gone.
My voice held something sweet,
right from my mouth yet I couldn’t taste it.
I couldn’t pin it down.
What can the men that hang around the parking lot see that I can’t?
I was born yesterday,
but now my lips are swollen; that’s it.
Like a virgin-
sized up for the very first time.
They all look the same to me,
the men who come up to me in the grocery store,
who yell after me as I duck into the soup aisle,
and the ones on the stand,
at the press conference.
They say ‘boys will be boys,’
so as a thirteen-year-old girl
I looked in the mirror and realized
I would have to watch my back.
Michelle Moroses is a teenage writer and poet from the Jersey Shore. Her hobbies include respecting and supporting women.
Photo by Ruvim Noga.
