I knew a girl who grew up being the type of woman men liked to fall in love with. They swore her face was sweet, sprinkled perfectly with connect the dot freckles they all hoped spelled out their name. As she grew older, her curves that bent in and faded out, made them take a look at her just one more time. Boys, who in reality had no idea what the future held, would take a glance at her and etch the word forever in their retina and perfect in flesh colored ink across her skin. Every man watched her butterfly down the street like she was their own personal five foot promise.

Growing up she had boys come up to her to befriend her with other thoughts in mind. But still she would take them in and allow them to set camp in her eyes and visit her soul. Welcoming them all too willingly than she now admits she shouldn't have. She started thinking about her wedding at the age of seven and by seventeen she had everything figured out. Even the groom, though she has said that before, she wants to continue to assume.

But I once knew a girl who grew up using men's feelings as life rafts hoping they would save her from the unwanted attention of her molester. Trying to drown his touch in a sea of fingertips; only to realize they all feel the same on her skin. Making her feel dirty and used, she tried to pretend it didn't bother her, while she let each passing man through her life pretending she didn't wish for them to be the one to finally say he'll stay. The weight of the world had become the weight of her sheets.

Growing up she would look for affections constantly, constantly needing to feel like she was being used for more than her womanhood and body heat. She always wanted to feel like she was in control, tired of being the tires screeching on rainy highways. She wanted to be more than the lost girl looking for sympathy, she wanted to be what he was looking for. But that never seemed to be enough for either of them.

Growing up she had become used to allowing men the ability to curve themselves into question marks and hold her desperately as if she were the answer. She had become afraid to admit that she is not. She has, instead, become a problem manifested and metastasizing, bubbling into a mass of compliments and excuses. And not one person would notice the grey parts of her until it was too late because everyone falls for a pretty face. She is a woman configured into messy thoughts, a buddle of nerves, a lovely face- a novel waiting to be published and shared- who releases her breaths onto empty pages. She is not made of metaphors, she is not a living poem. She is a woman, with bruised skin stretched over aching muscles and splintered bones. And as more time passes the less it seems to matter that these two girls are both the same person.