DISAPPEARING POEMS
Every couple days check back for a new poem! I'll be sharing random pieces I'm working on.
Other Girls
"You're not like other girls,"
they say with a glint,
as if spotting a rare treasure.
The idea of me, exceptional,
is one I lean into with a curious pride,
a pearl strung among pebbles, lifted high by
a thread of singularity.
Not like other girls,
the words presented like a gift, a crown,
and they bestow it as a coronation—
hoping I won’t feel the weight of it,
cruel, and cold as ice.
Because they don’t like other girls—
not their soft voices or loud laughs,
not their make-up free looks
or their too-bold lipstick marks on coffee cups.
They don’t like their glittering spines, woven of steel,
or how women wield their words
sharper than any they’ve managed to carve.
“Not like other girls,”
becomes a brittle cage,
crafted with care, to keep me— us different.
Apart.
There is no single way to be a woman,
the only shame would be remaining willfully
in a prison so frail.
I am proud to be one among many,
to laugh, to cry, to share our stories— one voice
in a chorus of other girls.