'It Girls' Don't Actually Exist
Categorization is what kills us all.
Girls with weedy thoughts. Girls in their creased and weathered vintage Levi’s, hunched over a wobbling wooden table in the corner of their local coffee shop. Girls with fine line fairy tattoos that peer through their sheer ivory blouses. Girls with one window open in Photoshop and another in Pinterest. Girls sipping half-finished-ice-melting oat milk lattes. Girls with their phones flipped facedown on the table, do not disturb. Girls working in solitude, gathered here today to girlboss alone together.
Girls on a deadline, girls on a budget. Girls making minimum wage and then coming to spend it on this hour, this sacred ritual, this mildly uncomfortable seat that can be rented for the steep price of eight dollars per coffee. Girls behind the counter, operating the espresso machine, pouring the milk and calling out the names of other girls. Girls’ unmistakable handwriting on the plastic to-go cups, little hearts drawn beneath, scribbled on with a fat Sharpie.
Girls pretending to pay no attention to each other. Girls with thick matte headphones, loose leaf notebooks, overstuffed suede bags, overstacked silver rings. Girls noticing—oh, girls notice. Every well-tailored outfit, every flawlessly executed hairstyle, every seamless spray tan. Every swing of the door, every cry of a child, every shift in the universe. Girls wincing at the couple two tables over struggling to connect. Girls flinching at the raucous storytellers by the window who appear unaware of their own volume. Girls feeling it all in their bones, in their toes, in their porous spirits.
Girls feeling left out—of the conversation, of the governing body, of the Bible. Girls labeling themselves as Libras and Carries and Thought Daughters, as if the feminine experience weren’t impossible to categorize. Girls selling themselves short. Girls comparing and contrasting their relationships, their art, their vacation photos, their noses. Girls in pursuit of products that will save them. Girls with sample size roll-on perfumes in their tote bags. Girls with pepper spray clipped to their keychains.
Girls who used to fantasize about the future, but have now become girls who envy their younger selves. Girls who are secretly worried they hit their peak at 23. Girls who have watched the world skewer their wildest dreams on a flaming stick. Girls who have been chewed up, swallowed, spit back out again. Girls who have tasted the tang of an incompatible lover’s mouth.
Girls who still want to kiss anyway.
Girls with leatherback journals stuffed full to the brim. Girls with stories, girls with deflated aspirations, whose strong lungs keep pumping and refilling them with air. Girls who gave up, and then decided to give it another try, to stir another pot. To make another attempt at truth. To leave something nourishing behind for the girls who will come after them, if they choose to go out searching for it.
