Poetry once read no more, yet it pulses,
Emotions unfelt now but lived,
And life unlived, fades away,
In the end, women.

To be born, courage.
We resist.

The whirlwind of our first seconds of life
Is just a glimpse of the years to come.

Feels,
Sensations,
Noise. Chill.
Commotion.
Hunger. Pain. Fear. Bliss.
Strength.

Let there be light.

We persist,
Following heart dictates,
Commanding, yet embracing.

Often,
it scalds the soul,
Upon unguarded skin.

Pain,
Anger,
Yearning,
Erodes,
Each passing day,
A fragment of our being.

To be a woman is to embrace courage.
Bearing the essence of life
Signifies rebirth,
Whenever needed.

And every time,
We resist.

Don't dye your hair,
It does not match you,
Lose some weight
For beauty's sake,
Learn domestic arts,
It's women's duty,
That's not how a lady behaves,
You must be tough,
And countless other verses,
That could have been in the trash.

Through poetry, the verses surge,
Even if no eyes reach their lines

They seep,
Falling,
Breaking free,
From me.

Me, the bearer of life,
Forced to remember my role,
In blankness,
With droplets of blood,
Once allowed to escape,
To flow,
From within.

Not today.

I won't look behind,
Being born a woman was my act of courage.

If our lives were an essay,
We would need no cover.

They delay,
They burden,
They wound,
Much like the men
Who've crossed my path.

This poetry doesn't bend
Of those, my body's curves
Which I once despised
Are enough

The courage of curves
In this straight world.

Madness,
They declare,
And I,
No longer care.

Madness,
their term,
that defines when women get fearless.