The first time I questioned my strength was the first time I fell out of a tree, watching from the ground as beams of sunlight hit my cousins' faces during my ascent through branches, I was told I was lucky girls would never have to climb trees.
Well what they called lucky, I called no fun and in my young mind a seed was sown containing a tree that I vowed to reach the top of someday.
I began my climb at the age of eight when I burned my make believe kingdom to the ground as it was declared that a queen needed a king to rule.
While in my young mind I cried as the word 'unfair' spilled from my eyes to water the seed I had sown there.
Little boys don't go to sleep dreaming of being someone's Prince Charming so why should little girls be happy to find themselves as someone's princess, told their worries are over, how could they be sad now that they have a boy?
They found the one thing every preteen is forced to need, they found love. They won the race society threw them into where the prize is never being sad again because they finally found another person.
But you've been surrounded with people all your life, how dare you be called lonely just because they weren't a string of empty partners, you were never alone.
At age eleven in my young mind I find myself on the lowest branch of my tree separate from the girls below me because they were pushed to the ground by week long so called "relationships" in an attempt to mimic the fading adults surrounding them.
What no one told these girls was that there were seeds in their hands that they didn't need someone else to grow.
When a boy announces a need he's called pathetic but with a girl it's expected.
When I reach my twenties, I will be told I am given the privilege to decide which king gets to rule over my country.
Well what they call privilege I call basic human right and I'm told I'm unfeeling and uncaring when I choose neither ruler.
In the real world, I see a forest of women who are told they are incapable and half human until a man looks at them.
What we weren't told is that we don't need another person to carry our fragile bones as we scale mountains, that we are stronger than armies, all I want is to walk the rivers of this earth simply with my favorite person by my side. Not because I need them but because I want them next to me as I reach for another branch.
When you get lost in the wilderness you are told to climb the nearest tree in search for a sign of civilization.
In my young mind, the aim of my climb is not to find another person, it's to see the view.
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Quick little note, if you would like to read this aloud, skip the commas and give it feeling because this is meant to be a spoken word poem
