Always Night

You are a silly girl.

Tired but refusing to sleep.

Survival isn't a tactic, or a necessity.

Survival is a pocketknife tucked into your garter, 

having to listen to your dying mother sob, black dresses with matching black lipstick,

an outfit that screams "there is nothing here, do not come any closer, I will eat you alive."

Exhaustion is ten thousand pounds of bone, and exactly two blinks before death.

Don't blink.

Don't blink.

Don't blink.

You shouldn't have to know pressure your thighs can fight against, the lullaby you are surely singing yourself to sleep tonight.

You are 15, and you are allowed to be tired.

The world will tell you, pretty girl, who you belong to.

You are liquid lava, you are the sun; burn them, blind them, make them feel your heat.

Survive.

And sleep.