Wild Girl

My mother, and her mother

and every woman that came

before her carry within their

blood, a history of hardships.

It is the quiet sigh of a girl

that is learning to live in a body

the world would claim, not

because she has allowed it

but because between her legs

was a power they wanted to

control and constrict

under the guise of protecting

her virtue, when it was simply

a matter of fear.

The world has never been kind

to women — of any color, of any

birth.

The world looks at them and thinks

of how many ways to break a

girl. They pressed silence down your

throat and said it was because

“A quiet girl was more favorable”,

never knowing that you are more than

the soft curves of your gender.

You are wild roots of flowers that can

grow to choke the stronghold of any

foundation till it crumbles.

You are life and the closest thing to God

on this mortal earth. Women like you have

enticed wars among men, and seen to

the birth of civilization and the collapse

of kingdoms.

You were meant for greatness

from the moment you came into this world

with a scream on your lips, flushed and flaying

your limbs in the hour of your birth.

So be brazen, daughter, sister

the world may not have been kind to you

but you have shown the world that for all

it’s efforts to contain you, you burned as

brightly as a pyre.