"turning 20" by Caitlyn Siehl

so now you’re about to turn twenty and the world hasn’t gotten any bigger for you. you’re untouched, unloved, unprepared. your parents still pay for your gas. your friends all have internships. one of them even got cast to be in a movie. you’ve got all this talent that you don’t know how to share. you just want to fuck someone, anyone, to feel a little less like an island. the man at the McDonald’s drive-thru held both sides of your hand when he handed you your change and you cried the entire way home. skin burns. you’re about to turn twenty and you feel like you’re fifteen. you sleep for fourteen hours and still need a nap. the world is shrinking one empty heartache at a time.

you’re scared you’ll never find anyone to love you, not even well. you’ll settle for anything.

don’t.

you’re about to turn twenty and they never remind you how young that is. falling in love does not make you grow up, heartbreak does, and there is more than one way to fall apart.

you’re about to turn twenty and it’s okay if you aren’t ready. it’s okay if you aren’t ready. it’s okay.

"Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair" by Jeanann Verlee

When your mother hits you, do not strike back. 
When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. 
When he says you gave him blue balls, say you’re welcome.  
When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her.
Then head-butt her. 
When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. 
When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. 
When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. 
When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home.
When your mother hits you, do not strike back. 
When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka.
Every time. 
When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. 
When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. 
When your father locks the door, break the window. 
When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. 
When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. 
When your mother hits you, do not strike back. 
When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. 
When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know.
When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. 
When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late. 
When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. 
When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. 
When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. 
When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. 
When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. 
Do not regret this. 
Do not turn red.
When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

"The Cross of Snow" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

An ember from the fireplace caught on the dress of the poet's wife. As a result, her life was cut short. It is said that Longfellow tried to put out the fire, which burned and disfigured his face so much that that he grew a long beard to hide it... I read this in 8th or 9th grade and it always stays in my memory. I've always found this sonnet touching, yet poignant.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face–the face of one long dead–

Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Here in this room she died, and soul more white

Never through martyrdom of fire was led

To its repose; nor can in books be read

The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West

That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines

Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

"Communion" by Jeanann Verlee

This always breaks my heart. Amazing stuff.

I know a boy who called his girlfriend’s body a “crime scene.” Dad, my body is a crime scene. My body is lint and gasoline and matchstick. My body is a brush fire. It’s ticking, Dad, a slow alarm. I have rain boots. Lots of them. It isn’t raining anymore. The words are coming back, Dad. The way they fit and jump in the mouth. I want ice cream and long letters. I want to read long love letters but I don’t think he loves me. I think I’m used up. I think I’m the grit under his nails, the girl who looks good in pictures. I don’t think he loves me. I think they broke me, Dad. I think I drink too much and it’s because they broke me. I heard about two girls recently, two women crushed like cherries in a boy’s jaw. It opened me, Dad. My body is melted wax, it is ripe and stink and bent. It is a mistake. I walk like an apology. I don’t hate men, Dad, I don’t. I want a washing machine. I want someone else to do the dishes, someone to walk the dog. I have a hornet in my head, Dad. A hornet. She’s an angry bitch — she hurls herself against my skull. She stings. And stings. I know I don’t make sense, Dad. This is the problem. I’m a sick girl, a crazy wishbone. I have razors under my tongue. I’m sorry I cut you, Dad, I’m so—so sorry. I gave you a card for Father’s Day once, it said you were my hero. You are. Your laugh is a thunderclap, you love like surgery. I think they broke me, Dad. I can’t erase their faces. I want to swim, Dad. Remember when I used to hopscotch? I used to make you laugh. My feet are hot. The bottoms of my feet are scorched sand, August asphalt. My body is a slug, a mob of sticky wet rot. No one touches me anymore because I’m rot. Because my body is a spill no one wants to clean up. They cracked me open, Dad, I know you don’t want to hear about it. You don’t want to hear how they scissored me, how they gnawed me like raw meat. No one wants to hear how they made me drink lemon juice, how they kicked the dog, how they upturned the furniture, no one wants to hear how my skin turned to a dark thick of purple and black and lead. I watch the homeless a lot, Dad. I watched a man with a cup of coins and chips of skin carved out of his face. He had freckles. He needs medicine, Dad. He needs to stop the hornet. My body is a hive. I am red ants and jellyfish. A yellow sickness. My body is a used condom in an alley in Jersey City. I don’t think he loves me, Dad. My body is a fetus in biohazard tank. A Polaroid pinned to a corkboard in Brooklyn. I think I’m hurt, Dad. I think I was the tough girl for too long. My body is a wafer, a thin, soft melt on a choir boy’s tongue.