I will never forget the day I was first cat-called

I was in New Orleans, with my dad by my side, in a floral print romper and my hair falling to my shoulder

We were standing outside of a bar that I couldn’t go into, watching the people dance and play music from the door, the nice security guard standing beside us

Two men in their forties walked up behind us and started commenting on my body. 

How skinny I was, how sexy I would look in a shorter dress, how hot I would look in their arms

The nice security guard scared them away

I felt my skin crawl as I pulled the sides of my romper as low as I could, and pulled on the baggy jacket I had brought with me. 

For the rest of the night, I walked around boiling in the jacket in case we ran into those men again. 

I was thirteen at the time. I had barely known long enough about sex and periods and my own body, but it was enough for them

It was enough for the men who thought they had the right to my body

To the way I looked and dressed and felt

That day was the day that I lost my girlhood

It was the day I realized that there are bad men out there

Men who call and whistle at girls who are barely middle schoolers 

The girls who are supposed to be digging in the dirt and gossiping with others their age about the events at their school. 

Those girls should never experience that

Those girls deserve to write in diaries about celebrity crushes and cute boys at school. 

We shouldn’t have to wonder which men are good. 

We shouldn’t have to be scared to walk home alone after the sun has started setting

We. Shouldn’t. Have. To. Hide. Our. Bodies. For. The. Sake. Of. Old. Men. Who. Can’t. Control. Themselves.