Heartless Girls

Today, I rewatched Denise Frohman's "Dear Straight People", which includes a line specifically about teenage difemina girls. So I decided to expand on that and write my own poem about the intersection of misogyny and heteronormativity - and the unique love, camaraderie, and sisterhood between queer teenage girls and young queer women.

Heartless Girls

We are the heartless girls
The bisluts and bitches
We are fetishes
When we tell straight men no in clubs
We are the prudes and whores
The sinful girls who are always ready for sex
Our no taken as a yes
We are the queer girls,
The ones straight women see as
Predatory
When we're the ones who live in fear.

We're the girls with the half-shaved heads
Snapbacks and bowties,
Or the fierce femmes
Invisible in dresses and high heels
And perfectly
Applied
Lipstick.

We are the girls who hate ourselves
When we're rejected
Because "real" intimacy always involves sex
When we're told we're disgusting
Because if enough people say it, you start to believe them
When we don't want a romantic happily-ever-after
Because that's all we've been allowed to want
When we're raped
Because bi girls are just toys,
Commodities to be used and abused,
Dolls to be played with.
When we're not good enough,
Because queer girls are never good enough.

We are the heartless girls
Who love more than anyone
We are the girls who are shamed
For speaking out in social justice
Out of love for our sisters.
Because "Not all feminists are lesbians!!!"
We are the queer girls,
Survivors of a culture
That would rather we were dead.
We are the only ones
Who give a damn about one another.
We are the heartless girls,
The queer girls,
The sinful girls,
The prudes,
The dykes,
And we will always protect each other.