Content warning: death, violence, mental illness, childbirth, mentions of smoking and sex

our final girls are back from the sanatorium
scraping dregs of blood out of their blonde hair
reaching with wet hands for puffs of each other’s cigarettes
suck-in food-between-teeth messy-millennial icons
spilling from nurse-blue EKGs, hands still full of
high school memorabilia

our final girls have heaven now
botox, cloud houses, miniature ponies, swimmer’s bodies
throwing a party, storming a museum
crawling up out of the drains, back from weekly pirouette practice,
running the hills in their tutus swinging baseball bats

because that’s what it means to be feminine and alive,
to grow up and move on from that
time a guy tried to kill you
& succeeded in killing all your friends

our final girls ride around town in the back of a convertible truck
fucking each other in lilac fields, speaking a language only they understand
drinking margaritas on smith st, film-fucked grime on their teeth
hungover, glitching, they creep to diners
always everywhere, all at once
sipping black coffee from cheap chipped mugs
resigned to the endless violence

because that’s what it means to be feminine and alive

we’re proud of what happened
a solid, steady thing
like stainless steel or wi-fi
we don’t yet regret it
houseplants on their scrubbed floorboards, $7 rosé, election signs,
dirt-eating

and eventually,
children
from their pap-scraped, nauseous bodies
labour pains & ballooning ankles no shock to someone
who can still smell
the guts of her best friend spilled over a concrete basement floor
(pink & wet, & newborn)