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SCRAMBLER presents

04 | 03.2017

Thirteen Years Old
by Oriette D'Angelo, translated by Jeremy Spencer

The girl is thirteen years old and is named earthquake.
The girl is crazy, listen
The girl is crazy and disobedient
her school clothes are dirty
her school clothes smell bad
the girl smells bad
the girl is crazy
only reads and eats
watches television and hates it
yells and gets good grades
lives in a room that is not hers
doesn’t listen to me when I yell
doesn’t listen to me and I hate it
doesn’t open the door
crazy
surrounds the girl
doesn’t talk to me
doesn’t eat with me
doesn’t support me

and the crazy girl doesn’t know
what it is to be thirteen years old
doesn’t know to exploit the beauty
of her asteroid sized eyes
only writes and makes friends
friends that will soon be her house
her spasm
her first loves
housed in screens
the crazy girl is suicidal
a cliché
that links arms with girlfriends
and suffers with them.

Listens to loud music and paints animals.

Writes poems that no one reads.
Cuts up notebooks
to construct a ravine.

She knows that her breasts grow and with them deterioration
knows everything is
destined to die
not afraid to jump.

She does not know how to touch the undulations of the body
nobody teaches her to feel and her life is changing
no one teaches her
that it is ok to bleed
when not provoked
nobody cares for the girl
because the girl is crazy
doesn’t know how to be thirteen

and want to continue living.

Read original in Spanish

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