i’m part of a band of girls with cheeks puffy from screaming until red-faced,
whose moms worry they’re weird, irregular, swimming the wrong direction,
who buy thrift store jewelry sealed in plastic bags and line their lips electric pink.
We’ve taught ourselves to dance even with arms bitten by chains and legs locked into knots.

We string purple pony beads and star-shaped plastic charms onto sewing thread,
call them friendship bracelets, and tie them around each other’s wrists.
We spit out wet curse words like they’re the wooden pits of stone fruit
that dribble sticky, clear syrup down our chins and onto tank tops stained all over.

We’re not scared for our classmates to see us crying. Dabbing dry tissue under our eyelids,
we shout with meter and verse that imprints itsself into song lyrics.
Our teeth grind down on yesterday’s top news headlines and letters to the city’s mayor.
His office rarely responds, but we write to him anyway.

I’m with the girls who make you slackjawed with their wide-open mouths,
who steep their words, bitter with used tea bags,
until every syllable bubbles out of the kettle’s rusted spout,
and the metal pot lets out a deafening screech.