When I Say We Are All Teen Girls

When I say that we are all teen girls
 What I mean
 Is that when my grandmother called to ask why I didn't respond to her letter
 All I heard was
 "Why didn't you text me back?
 Why don't you love me?"
 And how can I talk about my grandmother
 Without also mentioning that if everyone is a teen girl
 Then so are the birds
 Their soaring Cliques
 Their squawking throats
 And the sea
 Of course
 The sea
 Its moody push and pull
 The way we drill into it
 Fill it with our trash
 Take and take and take from it
 And still
 It holds us
 Each time we call it's name
 What is more teen girl than not being loved but wanting it so badly
 That you accept the smallest crumb and call yourself full
 What is more teen girl than my father's favorite wrench
 Its eternal loyalty and willingness to loosen the most stubborn of bolts
 What is more teen girl than my mother's chewed nail beds
 Than the whine of the floorboards in her house
 What is more teen girl than my dog, Jack
 Whose bark is shrill and unnecessary
 Who has never stopped a burglar
 Or heeled on command
 But sometimes when I laugh his tail wags so hard it thumps against the wall
 Sometimes It sounds like a heartbeat
 Sometimes I yell at him for talking too much
 For his messy room
 Sometimes I put him in pink striped polos
 And I think he feels pretty
 I think he likes to feel pretty
 I think Jack is a teen girl
 And the mountains
 Oh
 The mountains
 What teen girls they are
 Those colossal show-offs
 And the moon
 Glittering and distant
 And dictating
 All of our emotions
 My lover's tender but heavy breath while she sleeps is a teen girl
 How it holds me and keeps me awake all at once
 How I sometimes wish to silence it
 Until she turns her body and The room goes quiet
 And suddenly I want it back
 Imagine
 The teen girls gone from our world
 And how quickly we would beg for their return
 How grateful would we be then for their loud enthusiasm
 And ability to make a crop top out of anything
 Even the men
 Who laugh their condescending laughs when a teen girl faints at the sight of her favorite pop star
 Even those men are teen girls
 The way they want so badly to be so big
 And important
 And worshipped by someone
 Donald trump
 Teen girl
 And his tiny, tweeting hands
 Pluto
 Teen girl
 And her rejection from the popular universe
 And my father
 A teen girl
 Who insists he doesn't believe in horoscopes but wants me to tell him the best traits of a Scorpio
 I tell him
 We are all just teen girls
 And my father
 Having raised me
 Recounts the time he found the box of love notes and condom wrappers I hid in my closet
 All of the bloody sheets
 The missing socks
 The radio blaring over my pitchy sobs
 The time I was certain I would die of heartbreak
 And in a moment was in love with a small, new boy
 And of course there are the teen girls
 The real teen girls
 Huddled on the subway after school
 Limbs draped over each other's shoulders
 Bones knocking an awkward wind chime
 And all of the commuters
 Who plug in their headphones to mute the giggle
 Silence the gaggle and squeak
 Not knowing where they learned to do this
 To roll their eyes and turn up the music
 Not knowing where they learned this palpable rage
 Not knowing the teen girls who are our most distinguished professors
 Who teach us to bury the burst
 Until we close our bedroom doors
 And then cry
 With blood in the neck
 Foot through the door
 Face in the pillow
 The teen girls who teach us
 To scream