Like totally whatever, after Taylor Mali.

In case you haven’t realized it has somehow become necessary for old white men to tell me how to speak (?)
They like, interrupt a conversation that isn’t even theirs, and are like “speak like you mean it” and like “the internet is ruining the English language.”
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And they like, put my “parentheticals,” my “likes” and “ums,” and “you knows” on a wait list.

Tell them no one will take them seriously in a frilly pink dress. Or that make-up.
Tell them they have a confidence problem. That they should learn to speak up, like the hyper-masculine words were always the first to raise their hands.

Invisible red pens and college degrees have been making their way into the middle of my sentences. I’ve been crossing things out every time I take a moment to think.

Declarative sentences, so-called, because they declared themselves to be the loudest, most truest, most taking up the most space, most totally white man sentences.
Have always told me that being angry has never helped like, anybody.
Has only gotten in the way of helping them declare more shit about how they’ll never be forgotten like, ever.

It’s like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were geniuses for turning women into question marks.
It’s like rapes happen all the time on campuses, but as soon as Jon Krakaeur writes about it, suddenly it’s like innovative nonfiction, and not like something girls are like making up for like attention.

And it’s like maybe I’m always speaking in questions because I’m so used to being cutoff.
Like maybe, this is a defense mechanism: Maybe everything girls do is evolution of defense mechanism.

Like this is protection, like our “likes” are our knee pads.
Our “ums” are the knives we tuck into our boots at night.
Our “you knows” are best friends we call on when walking down a dark alley.

Like this is how we breathe easier.

But I guess feelings never helped anybody.
I guess like, tears never made change.
I guess like everything girls do is a waste of time (?)

So welcome to the bandwagon of my own uncertainty.
Watch as I stick flowers into your “punctuation mark” guns, ’cause you can’t just challenge authority. You have to take it to the mall, too.
Teach it to do the “bend and snap.” Paint its nails, braid its hair, tell it it looks like, really good today.

And in that moment before you murder it with all of the poison in your like, softness, you let it know that like this, like this moment is like, um, you know, me using my voice.