GRIEF AS GIRLHOOD by Rose McCoy (West Virginia)

i got my insatiable grief from my father
and learned to mourn like a dove by my mother
it is a gift of elephantine proportions
               (runs through our veins like a snake)
                         passing down from the old groups to new ones
                                   living in the girls that soon grow into women
                         pooling in their Mary Jane shoes
               (and it looks like this)
you are twelve and bleeding for the first time
you forgot to change the pad and so you’ve smelled of blood for days
the stench of being woman                strong;
                                                                       you cannot scrub it off

in the days that follow you are filled with nervous fervor
you cry for the loss of your self and an angel appears
it says ‘i’m sorry--
                                   we thought you’d ordered
                                   womanhood’
and you say ‘it’s okay--
                                   it’s all part of the
                                   American dream’
​


Rose McCoy (she/her) is a poet and writer from Morgantown, West Virginia. She often writes on themes of love, loss, and other things that hit her in the heart. She has been published by Graphic Violence Lit, Free Spirit Publishing, Cathartic Youth Lit, and Bullshit Lit, and her debut chapbook, Sink or Swim: Reflections on an Ending, was published through Bottlecap Press in April. When not writing, she can probably be found screaming into the void as she has an existential crisis. Writing updates can be found on her Twitter @24hrmccoy.