(Oct 11 2011)
Girl Power
That’s the hockey boy.
The air is smoky, the disco lights are dim, but I’d recognise those almond eyes anywhere. Your gaze – penetrating, mysterious, like that of a fox. Jared. Jared the fox. You’re walking towards me – I never thought you’d look at me in the eye like that, like how your gaze is holding on to mine now.
You’re a tad tipsy. So am I. Hello, Jared.
“Rachel.”
You know my name. You’d know me; I’m Sarah’s friend. Sarah, the girl whose heart you broke two weeks ago. I’m the one you see drying her tears at the stands, trying to mend her soul. You horrible boy. I know what you –
your gaze cuts me off in my head. Those eyes of yours – no need for words.
Boy, you’re close.
Your breath smells of alcohol. So does mine.
Your lips and mine – meant to be, meant to be. You’re a fiery power washing over me. Boy, where have you been my whole life? Your hands, your lips – you’re fire, raging fire; my heart screams a beautiful inferno. I’m drowning, drowning, but you’re all that matters.
*
The next night, we hang out at the park under the diamond-studded sky, a mild bottle in your hand and one in mine – for atmosphere – and we talk and laugh and laugh till dawn. You’re beautiful. We talk for many nights afterward. And then one day you kiss me again.
*
“Yeah, she’s my girl”
We’re inseparable. We laugh and kid around with the other hockey boys as you put your arm around me, keeping me close and safe. “She’s hilarious, where’d you get her?” I’m flattered. I’m popular.
Not hurt yet – so blind, so blind.
Four weeks on and you’ve used the word “boring” on me once. Just once – just a couple of drinks and a lonely park and things are better again. Just a stroke on my cheek and my heart melts. That’s the power you have over me.
Blind.
Six weeks on. We’ve been at the bar a couple of hours and I notice you’ve been shooting too many passes at the girl in the purple heels.
Five days later, you say maybe we should take a break. I say nothing. I know you won’t return.
You leave me to curl up in the cold of the dark, dark night, to wonder how things even began.
*
Three weeks later, I’m at the stands with Sarah and there you are at the hockey pitch. You don’t notice me, but I hear every word.
“new girl… Maddie…nailed her last night” “One more prize to the collection, J?”
Now my blinds have been removed.
I’ve known it all along, really – you aren’t really serious about the girls you take, and I shouldn’t be so affected by this, because you aren’t. But that little remark was a swift dagger through my heart – I guess a little flame in me thought I was as special as you had made me feel, with the sunsets and the moonlit dreams.
Hurt like an unsuspecting, jagged-edged dagger.
It’s like you have this power, this control in you, and you happened to spill a bit of it on my soul – you’ve walked away, but the stain remains.
The hurt turns into rage – fury at your charm that is the power you seem to have over naïve girls, and at the fact that you know that, and abuse it. Rage builds up inside me. You foul monster behind that mask of charm – you walk right through the glass doors to my heart, fill it with electricity, and then trample on it without even realising because you’re tripping over yourself, your sights set on the next pretty girl.
Prizes. You and your friends speak of girls like trophies – little medals for display, numbered off. You boys think you have this supreme hypnotic power over these prizes. Just a gaze, just a kiss, and she’s yours up for show. You parade around with her, making her feel special when you’re really just announcing your latest catch. It’s these blind girls like me, blind to your obnoxious personality inside, whom you flatter for a thrill. You assume you have all the power, the authority, to walk right in and out and leave a trail of broken, yearning hearts.
No more. If there’s one thing to learn, it’s that you boys don’t hold all the power. We’re emotional and vulnerable – but we’re vicious, too, just like you.
It’s my turn to show you power.
I, on behalf of all the other hearts you’ve broken, of all the girls whose souls have been crushed by boys like you – I’ll unleash the poisonous power we girls are capable of: the power of words. I’ll show you the ferocity and strength of the girls you mess around with.
*
Word spreads like wildfire, like how we girls do it. Jared, that cute hockey boy everyone knows – he really isn’t as amazing as his charm makes him out to be. His stupid charm and his stupid eyes: bait waiting for a girl to get hooked.
“Yuck, that’s the guy. What a bastard.”
Soon everyone knows of your hunger for tender hearts. The air around you is acidic; you feel the tingling poison behind the words of those who pretend they heard nothing. The girls shoot you passing glances that speak a thousand words. The decent boys promise their girlfriends they’re nothing like that bastard they’ve been hearing about, that infamous cute hockey boy. The power of girls and their acidic words, they’ll crush you. They will.
How much power does it all hold, though?
What power do I command by having done all that, by telling the world of your ugliness behind the charm? You crushed my heart with four weeks of charm and deceit, shallow promises and alcohol-induced infatuation. And I attempt to kill you just as viciously – albeit more straightforwardly – by exposing your hideous soul. I try to make you see how ugly you really are, but perhaps I really only have the power if it crushes you – and heals me.
Yet every time I see you, a little spark goes off in my heart before I crumble again. Just the sight of you makes me suddenly feel powerless. I realise my revenge never tasted sweet. I tell yet another girl of your cruel heart, and one more person knows of the horrible boy you are – and the stupid girl I was. And I remind myself of it one more time.
As much as I hate to admit it, my bitter attempts at getting back at you never healed me. My attempts to show you the power we girls are capable of – the girls you catch and kiss and throw back into the black sea – they never make me feel stronger. I try to crush your world, but I only push myself deeper into the hole I dug with your filthy silver-coated shovel.
And what impact does it have on you? You know your reputation’s ruined; it’s going to be just that bit harder to get the next girl. But you’ve been pretty infamous for your wild side all along anyway – your friends have always known too – what difference does it really make?
And as I curl up in my bitter thoughts, you’re on to your next party with the girl in the purple heels, laughing with the people who don’t give a damn. The pretty girls still know you’re high up the social ladder – blind girls who’d kill for fame. They’re the girls you entertain – for a night of “fun” – and then joke about the next day with the boys.
What is power when it only continues to push me deeper into this emotional whirl? What is power when it has no effect on you?
What is this power?
You’ve displayed your power over me by effortlessly pulling me close and walking away, but keeping me chained while you freely move along. I submit myself to you with tears, bitterness and letting you know I still haven’t moved on, with my angry acidic words.
Power isn’t about furiously trying to get back at you: it’s about moving on.
Letting go is easier said than done. First, I must acknowledge that I’m still your prisoner. The times I spent telling the world about your vicious interior – I was merely angrily banging at your door, screaming for an apology.
I fall incredibly silent. No longer do I speak of you. I try to laugh along with my friends; I thank God for the times you’re not on my mind, for when I’m distracted by people who actually matter.
When I see you in school, I try not to avert my gaze, but neither do I glare. I look straight at you, trying to be unafraid, unaffected. Of course I’m trembling inside – but if I don’t act like my chains have been broken, I’ll never convince myself that they are.
I tell Sarah the truth I’ve just learnt of. Sarah says she had known it all along – my vicious get-backs just proved that I was still emotionally bound to you.
Slowly, she helps me rebuild the walls of self-love that you had torn down. Sarah. The girl whose heart you had toyed with just before you had taken mine – she doesn’t mind it. She forgives me for blindly falling into the arms of the boy she was still trying to get over at that point in time. She isn’t chained to the bitterness that I am trying to free myself from. That’s strength. That’s power.
At first, I thought power was telling the world of your ugly black heart. Little did I realise all I did was tighten the ropes that bound me emotionally to you, while you didn’t care. With that, I had only proven the extent of the power you still had over me.
Power isn’t about angrily trying to ruin the life of the one who ruined mine – that’s simply bitter revenge, and it doesn’t set you free. Power is showing him that he no longer has any control over me, that I’ve moved on.
Boys may think they have that power over us, but when we break ourselves free from the sugar-coated chains they lock us to, with strength, with forgiveness –
they realise they have no power after all.
