She did not ask if she could be strong,
she just was, like a tree
that grows sideways to find the sun.
Her voice was a drum,
loud in a room that wanted quiet.
Her walk was a stomp,
not a tiptoe, not a whisper.
They called her too much,
too loud, too wild, too fierce.
She said: good.
A storm doesn’t say sorry for the rain.
Inside her chest: a small fire
that never went out,
even when people tried to blow on it.
She did not shrink to fit the box.
She grew until the box broke,
and she picked up the pieces
and built herself a tower instead.
