If I could say anything to who I was as a teenager, it was to maintain a safe amount of careful skepticism.
When you fall for that boy, pay careful attention to the way his parents are behind closed doors.
You will not be surprised when he tries to keep you for himself and not even your mother may have you.
When he tells you that you cannot talk to the boy you’ve been friends with since middle school,
You will learn to listen to him, be that wrong or right.
You learn to listen to him because defiance becomes a ****** nose or a bruise to hide.
You will try to stand up for yourself and he will beat you into the grain of the wood floor
But from the skin of his knuckles he will teach you to be strong.
When you give him what he wants in his room to avoid another black eye,
Each ****** will teach you what it means to be indestructible.
Every punch, kick, knock-down, drag-out screaming match will suddenly pop into your head years later
When you learn to tell the next man that you will not put up with anything less than the magic you’ll
Find at nineteen.
And you will learn to believe, after slicing and starving and keeping so quiet, that you are too beautiful
To let anyone convince you that you aren’t any longer. Not even yourself.