0:13 People don't give girls enough credit.
0:15 I'm in the ninth grade now and the last
0:17 time I studied a uniquely female
0:19 narrative was in sixth grade. That might
0:22 not seem like a lot, three years, but it
0:24 is. Difference between 12 and 15,
0:27 between girl and we're reading together
0:29 mockingb bird now. And I was walking
0:31 home one day thinking about how Dill's
0:33 hair was described as duck fluff or how
0:35 Scout viewed reading as breathing or
0:37 what I'd helped my mom make for dinner
0:40 when I guess I was frowning a little
0:43 deep in thought. Um someone a man, a
0:48 grown man told me to smile,
0:51 sweetheart. Strange, right? Telling some
0:53 stranger to look happy. You know, it
0:55 only takes one more muscle than smiling
0:57 to punch someone in the teeth. Blood's
0:59 better than tears anyway. Action over
1:01 thought. Thoughts left lingering,
1:02 wriggling through vital veins and
1:04 organs. When you try to fight something
1:06 you know is bigger than you. The cudgel
1:08 which has bludgeoning countless before.
1:09 Because if there is no struggle, then
1:11 you lose the cold and broken.
1:14 Hallelujah. Well, at least you fought
1:16 back. Don't tell sad girls to smile.
1:18 Don't tell sad girls to smile because
1:20 she might be the type who gets cut by
1:22 hipbones. Don't tell sad girls to smile
1:23 because she might still be trying to
1:25 scrub someone else's sin from her skin.
1:27 Hot water, holy water, it all flows
1:29 under the same bridge eventually and the
1:31 dead can only feel cold. So if she can
1:33 feel the burning water, then maybe,
1:35 maybe don't tell sad girls to smile
1:37 because she does it for herself or
1:39 someone she feels comfortable with, not
1:41 some slack jawed fisheyed nice guy
1:43 doesn't find a frown appealing. She
1:45 might have a good reason to be sad. So
1:47 don't you tell me to smile. Is not your
1:50 mouth. It is not yours to kiss, to
1:52 consume, to find comfort in. When the
1:54 windows rattle in a storm, or your heart
1:56 rattles in your rib cage like seeds in
1:58 the dry earth, unable to grow without a
2:00 little water and sunshine and
2:03 tenderness. And if you really want a sad
2:06 girl to smile, then you hold her until
2:08 you're drenched in perfume from the
2:10 gardens you planted in her heart. So
2:13 that every time her wounds reopen, she
2:16 bleeds bouquets. But I'm not yours to
2:18 hold. And if you keep walking around
2:21 telling sad girls to smile, no one will
2:23 ever want to be. And if you come any
