Poet Essie Linzy, 17, is a junior at Whitney Young and competed in Louder Than a Bomb 2011 as an Indy Poet.

Her piece, I Don’t Like Girls, is about the immaturity of girls. The title is intentionally ironic – Essie does like females, but as she puts it: “I like women, not girls.”  Essie had been thinking of writing this poem since 8th grade and being in high school with so many girls helped her finally put it to paper.

Though everyone knows the points are not the point – the point is the poetry – congratulations to Essie, who was selected as an Indy Finalist in the 2011 competition which celebrated over 600 young writers.

I Don’t Like Girls by Essie Linzy

For some strange reason everyone seems to think that I like girls.
Well let me set the record STRAIGHT. I don’t.
I won’t let my ties tell you lies or my braids feed you flaky tails from a greasy spoon.
Rooms become confused when I enter. Whispers from that way and this one. Just Listen
I don’t like girls.

So you can stop with gossip, rumors, assuming,
Because you can’t find truth in something so false.
You’re so off I swear you’re so off you’re lost if
You think that I like girls.

You mean the ones who need boys compliments in order to feel more confident
They do the opposite of all those phrases we were given you know Books before boys because bring babies changes to
Looks are for boys they build me up and they make me.
So I can let them tear me down?
Girls?

Wow the ones who let their legs breathe in September
heads freeze in December
all because they want a redbone with dreads.
So they March in cute boots all through April rain and their fooled
Because they only end up with Easter eggs
Plump and fertilized
I swear it hurts when I hear someone ask me do I like girls?

Because they
jump through hoops like basketballs their minds travel letting boys carry them
While he’s dribbling 3 girls they claim that they still want to marry him
They judge covers, they don’t read, they don’t even Spark note them
To them boys are bar coded they swipe prices for the right one and then they
Check them out and then bag them. Because if he got a little paper. Then they’re his Barbie made of plastic.

They’re dramatic
The last note of piano pieces. The strong pluck of a guitar
The highest notes on violin. The screeching brakes on a car
Right before an almost accident but you see they are the traffic
They are the pedestrians texting and almost getting killed
Also the ones on the phones that drive behind the wheel.
They send you on a trip just to watch it play it off and
They always want the last word they just have to say it all
And I swear a rainbow tag but today I’ll take it off
If it makes you think that I like girls,

I’ll like girls when they become original and stop having Xeroxed styles
I’ll like girls when they don’t have to see a boy in order for them to smile
I’ll like girls when they don’t shoot each other and start dying for attention
I’ll never like girls in a minute in an hour or today until they become women.