Girl Talk

Let me preface this by saying I watched far too many Def Poetry clips on YouTube the other night after bumping into someone from high school. Not to mention I work with quite a few teenaged girls—sweet, cute, then out of nowhere catty as all hell—that remind me just why high school can so quickly turn from carefree to traumatic.

So, if you're feeling brave enough to jump into the high school version of my brain, read my poem after the jump. It's called Girl Talk.

Girl Talk

I was lonely, lonely in a way I’m just afraid to say

needing that female bond, that reassurance, that thing

that I’m sorry, boys, you just can’t give me.

But my mom’s been gone for so damn long

and you talk to your brother different than a sister

Why don't I just call my girlfriends and tell them I miss them?

I’m not well-versed in this thing they call Girl Talk.

Understand, I tried, but I spilled all my secrets back in the day

and then this girl, my best friend, my sister—she gave them away

Like they were hers to give, like I didn’t deserve them

So I locked up that part of me, I threw it away

Cause how can I bare my soul to you when you just use it against me?

I talked like a girl, I did the girl talk

I told the girls my secrets, I gave them all my dirt

They swore and they promised

then threw it out, stepped all over my hurt

The words got twisted, my emotions got flipped

Next thing I know, I’m both a cocktease and a cunt

She said that you said that he said that she said

That…Shut the fuck up!

You’re a tramp and a slut!

Tell me what happened

Why you calling me a bitch, bitch?

Can’t say it to my face, you wait till I’ve passed

and call out the names at my back

Girl talk, this.

It’s me, back there, 16 and scared

I tell you a secret then you twist it and flip it

He says I did this, now you think I’m a tramp

So I trusted no girls with my secrets,

ever again!

I saved them all for my mother

Who would never betray my trust

Because my words were her words and hers were mine

Understand? She would listen, and talk out my hurt

If I admitted a fault,

she still saw to my heart

I erased the rest, stepped away from that pack

Because once I gave those girls my secrets

I could never get them back.

But then my mama died

and I’m left with this hole.

18 and alone,

mother-daughter thrown

No friends to be my sisters

No sisters to be girlfriends

Now, that’s kinda a lie

I still had some great girls to talk to

But girl talk could never quite be the same

after I was 16 and changed

by spilling my heart and then getting called out

as if I were the enemy:

the slut, the cunt,

the bitch, the tease,

always on her knees

I heard she fucked him and sucked him

and let him do what to her?

These girls, you girls, you said stuff I didn’t even know

Did I make you feel that low?

I tried so hard to fit in like the rest

But my awkwardness got me called a snob

I wanted to talk to you like I could talk to the boys

I grew up with brothers, so GI Joes were more my kinda toys

You know, I still played with Barbie too

But then Skipper told her I fucked Ken

and she kicked me out of her pink Corvette

So I’m left, again

in this maze of the girl talk

Ladies, we’re supposed to be sisters, friends!

How can we do that when we lie and pretend?

Bitch this, slut that

Slurs on bathroom stalls

Whispers in locker rooms

and no loyalty at all.

Damn, high school sure can be rough.

All this I’m spilling

Cause last night I saw one of them.

This girl I forgot existed

until I saw her again:

Waiting tables, I have to wait on HER

And suddenly I’m 16 again

walking down the high school hall

She waits till I pass, then she throws it at my back:

“THERE GOES THE WHORE!”

Oh wait, that’s what happened way back then

I looked in her eyes, I felt the heat on my face

I wondered if she knew this pain I couldn’t erase

That still, if I see girls huddled together,

talking in low whispers

I worry it’s me they’re talking about

For years my heart raced from feeling so out of place

I’d stay up nights hearing those insults, those names

But she didn’t call me a name—

She just smiled, and said,

“How are you?”

So I tried to smile back, and put my teenage self away

I thought of my mother, my cheerleader, my friend

Remembered all the ladies who never betrayed my pain

for another cruel teenager’s gain

Cause girls talk, boys talk, women talk, men talk

Mostly we’re all just trying to sort out our own thing

and after all, a name is just a name.

Girl talk.