First of all you dont even know me.

I live so many different lives

That you can’t see inside

Of me anymore.

I am not a girl,

I am a woman,

I am not allowed to be fearless you see,

I have to do what is expected of me.

Not allowed to have fun

Have to be home before the sun

Sets,

Otherwise I'll be shunned,

Or the elders will detest me

Under the pretence of

They want the best for me.

Then they'll scold me & their diction will be composed of expletives

Telling me a series of polysyllabic terms that basically mean:

I am a disgrace.

An indignity.

A disrepute.

A discourtesy.

They'll tell me I am not woman material.

That I am not even marriage material.

Excuse me? What does that even mean?

You can be as intelligent as Albert Einstein

But if you don't have etiquettes then in their eyes you're a waste of a girl,

Did you know that?

But I bet if I were a boy you'd cherish my very existence.

Because I would have the ability to compute subsistence to your name,

And being a boy would relinquish my chances of bringing dishonor or shame,

To your family.

BUT OH NO IT'S A TRAGEDY,

I have a vagina in between my legs

And that makes my twisted reality.

A boy?

He can go out until the next morning and be greeted by his mother saying,

“Did you enjoy yourself? How was your night?”

While she hides her daughter from eyesight saying,

“I don't want her to be meat for the predators out there”

What predators? The ones that blame a female for being attractive

The ones that feel provoked and think women are asking for a reaction?

We live in a world that blames women for being raped.

We live in a world that causes young women to be forsaked,

And caged.

I am one of those women.

I am the ‘Caged Bird’ Maya Angelou speaks of,

Struggling to sing, struggling to fly,

Struggling to be its own person because she’s trapped in from the outside.

And while I may look like a girl to you now due to my limitations,

Make note that I am being a woman of their admiration.

I accept who I am confidently,

Never forget I am still a woman phenomenally,

Phenomenal women

Thats me.