Best Poems Written by Samantha Liggett

Fourteen

I was never one of those
“desirable” kinds.
Never will be.
And I’m okay with that.

But being 14 years old
Stuffing padding down my shirt
And smearing big sister’s makeup across my face

Just to get some 19 year old to stuff his tongue down my throat

Is what it took.
Standing
In front of the mirror
Knowing I was about to get caught
Cause trouble
In the most unladylike of ways.

Wipe the mascara from under your 
Undeveloped
Eyes
And cheeks,
Girlie
‘Cause it’s okay to be afraid
That’s what men are s’posed to do to ya
I told myself

And at the age of 14
I laid on my mother’s bed
With my sister’s tiny skirt
Giant heels
Fake breasts
Staring at the cover of some (skinny girl, poofy hair, sensual lips)
O v e r d o n e 
Magazine that was stolen from a doctors' office
Cause we couldn’t afford to buy ‘em

It’s ironic now
I had to steal the very thing that made me
Feel like I had to succumb to the will of a
Superior
Frat boy

Into the flames of this party I walked
Teetering on the heels I’d never before used
Licking my lips and trying to come off like I was dumb enough to love you

I’d never had alcohol
Couldn’t even pronounce half the names
Of the things boys were downing
One
By
One
And in that room of too many people 
With too much skin
And too many noises
And too many illegal things being smoked and snorted and eaten
I ran to you

Because those things were what you did
In college
As a grown up
And I wasn’t one
So I ran

I can pretend that my eyes didn’t widen
When you whispered into my poor, innocent ears
When your hand reached up my sister's skirt
And you didn’t know.
“I’m 16” I would say
Screaming “No” in my head
“Look past me
Look harder
Please”

And as the moment that your infinite world took over mine
I realized that as much as I loved it
As much as I was
Grown up

I wasn’t.

I went home that night
Wiped the sex from my face
The drugs from my body
The alcohol from my veins

And I was happy.

Happy in the sense
That I knew I did something that I wanted to
...But would later regret...
Happy that I allowed myself to make decisions
...Even though they were dumb...

Happy that I knew I’d have to lie for the rest of my life.

14.

Copyright © Samantha Liggett | Year Posted 2006