What did it mean?
To be a tom-boy seemed
A complement
That was something
A girl like me
Might aspire to, who
Ran through woods,
Mostly barefoot—but often
In my twirling dress.
Paradoxically,
Was the inner drive
that hummed within my little heart
to be found small—
for smallness meant you could
be scooped up—
making men feel strong
Which is what they wanted
All along, perhaps?
Or was I wrong?
There was always this ache
To tell a story all my own.
But pulling
Was another note, that perhaps
The story I was born to have wrote
Was to be the greatness
Behind his name—
The mother, the
Wife, the maker—
Behind the greatness,
The self-forsaker—
Was that really what
Feminine
Must mean?
And I understand, why for this generation
Definitions of gender have been
Evaded. Suddenly,
they realize gender is jaded.
Paradoxically, you’ll still find me
In the woods—
Not small, but still twirling down the trail,
my branches and roots unabandoned sequoias.
