My growing pains started at age three.
They've never stopped.
Ironic, I know, considering I can't crack five-feet.
The pain is worse now.
It comes in sharp and hot and overwhelmingly unexpected.
Like while sitting in the coffee shop as "Angelina" plays overhead.
The memory of how he described the other woman as, "truly my best friend".
I think about the way he flirted with me the night before, but now has something to say.
Interest is the surest path to rejection.
Maybe it can be said that insecurity is a form of immaturity.
But when I am no longer wanted,
when my sexual pleasure isn't enough to be seen as anything worthwhile,
and he tells me that I am not worth his time,
I only know how to be a small angry child who is not worth defending.
A child whose only value is virtue, already lost to eyes of undeserving men.
I feel the pain as the shame drowns me on the sidewalk.
When I text a different man back and tell him that I will not have a one-night stand.
Who knew self love could feel so much like a death?
And when he goads me with a nude photo,
right after telling me that he is on his way to reconcile with his true love,
I crave the growing pains to remind me that this is unjust.
To affirm that I am more than a passing fancy.
And I am worth more than backtracked limits.
