By Riley McCormick, TIWP student

Pink pens, pink notebooks, pink shirts, blue chairs.

Popcorn and oranges every week.

Quotes litter the wall:

Maureen Murdock, Coco Chanel, Einstein, Tolkien, Ensler.

Inside, teenage girls blossom.

They bloom.

They write in this space that’s meant for just them.

They take in the quotes, the famous women on the walls, the chandelier,

the pink ottoman.

And they smile.

Because no matter what’s happening in these girls’ lives,

they always have a space to go,

to sit, to eat, to write,

to live in each other’s lives, and to tell each other’s stories.

Heroines write their own story.

And we are heroines.

“The way we tell our story is the way we live our lives.”*

*Quote on the window by Maureen Murdock