I remember clearly the woman I’ve been
and the girl I couldn’t be
and ask what, I’m just 20.

It all changed even before I was 10,
I met within me, a strong WOMAN,
even before the teenage could strike
just after I tumbled down the slide.

In my kitchen I find canisters,
half filled with rice, half with hope,
some with smiles my family abhors,
all kept on the shelves with covers undone,
in the darkest corners away from the Sun.

I keep the girl in the valley of my chest,
away from the monsters,
So if she wishes to defy death,
she rises from me, not the canisters.

I remember clearly the woman I’ve been
And the girl I couldn’t be
when my mother called me the fairy of their lives,
but I did not have a magic wand to her surprise.

How would she know, I have stuffed the pillows with my dreams,
The noise of the bathroom door hinges is that of my screams.
When I opened my room after thunderous knocks,
they found me tying my neck with the torn frills of my frocks.

Why not? They didn’t belong at the bottom of my dress,
Those were mere strings of my loneliness.
They were to be stuffed in the mouth of my childhood cries,
Or better burnt in the agony of my adult eyes.

I threw the dresses, I kept the frills,
I forgot the girl, I remembered the drills,
I soaked them in my tears,
I washed them along with my fears,
I ironed them every day,
They didn’t lose the creases, anyway.

I held them with love and kept them alive,
But they were frills, only on the edges, they were meant to survive.

To the woman I’ve been
and the girl I always wanted to be
Take a moment and hold me close,
Take a moment and call me home.

Let me, for once, breathe in your vicinity,
Let me honor your creativity.
Let me be yourself for a while,
Let me sob, crawl, and be a child.

Let me unlearn to braid my hair,
Let me make a circle and call it a square.
Let me colour the entire space blue,
Let me play and stick my hands with glue.

Let me wear my favorite frock
and show you how I twirl,
I’m now a woman,
but would you please call me a girl?