My girlhood was spattered like blood with girls hating each other for being prettier and fighting over a boy who didn’t make any effort for one or the other, character assassinating each other by calling someone well liked a whore, a slut, a bitch and relishing in the fall of female celebrities from their ‘pedestals’.

My girlhood was a war against my body until it looked just like the girls in the magazine, a war in which I attacked myself with weapons like wax, razors, creams until every part of me looked like it belonged to someone else.

My girlhood was made of wilting dreams and innocence lost never to be replaced with anything but sad understandings about womanhood.

My girlhood was made of all these terrible things.

And I will be damned it I ever allow my daughter to be subject to anything like the wars I have had to fight as a little girl. I will be damned if I ever allow her to go to battle with her innocence the way I had to when I was just a little girl.

Her girlhood will be made of softness, not like mine which was made of swords.