The Girls

In the southern heat,
giddiness spread in a slick of sweat.
A stale and sweet smell embraced the girls
as they danced and danced
and would not stop dancing.

Madness was marching through the town,
so said the men
as they felt themselves shrinking.
Bad bread or drugs or witchcraft.
Some said the women’s wombs must be wandering, lost.

But where the men saw fire, the girls glimpsed heaven
and they had not seen colour like it.
In school, the girls would not sit still,
succumbing to twitches down to their bones.
Spasming, mirroring.

Letting out a cacophony of noise, noise, noise.
Shocks ran up their spines,
jolting them from their chairs.
Videos flying from phone to phone.
Morbid flashes of magic,
mere seconds were enough to scratch those curious itches.

Laughter bouncing off glass.
They thrashed through the chains
until the metal laughed too.
A scream, a meow, a screech.
Even the animals did not sleep.

The children scrambled onto the shoulders
of the old, giggling as their knees buckled
with undetectable aches.
Small bodies raised high.
All high.

Then bodies multiplied in the hospital beds.
The mothers sat in duty by their sides,
clasping their hands, clutching their throats
as they saw double
again and again.

In here, the noise stopped.
But none of the therapies helped.
And still no one talked about how hard it is
to be a girl
and be feared

Helen Ferris is a poet and teacher living in London. Her work has been published in a range of magazines including Amsterdam Quarterly, Dear Damsels and Streetcake. She largely writes about chronic illness and bisexuality and is currently working on her first collection.