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Smart Alec


Today is Abby's 18th birthday. Any parent who has had a child will tell you how impossible those words can feel.

A few days ago, she emailed me a poem she wrote as part of a scholarship application. It was so phenomenal, I had to share it here. The poem is called.....eh, actually it doesn't have a title. But the scholarship was called Smart Alec. Please read.

I sit in a class

Surrounded by classmates

Most of them male.

I allow myself

To think and to observe

And to jot words in my mind, but not in

The airspace in front of me.

I keep

My sound waves

To myself.

And then

I think, for a

Moment

About

Alice Paul

On hunger strike for women's suffrage,

And

Elizabeth Warren

Persisting, despite her male

Peer's wishes.

I think of

My mother

Walking across the stage to

Receive her PhD.

I think of

Malala Yousafzai,

Shot, and rebuilding herself

Only to continue the fight.

I think of

My aunt and my grandma

And their fearless, fierce love.

I think of

Rosa Parks

Demonstrating the power

Of a woman's voice.

I think of

Michelle Obama

Saying, "There is no

Limit to what we

As women

Can accomplish."

I think of

The battle

Women fight every day.

I think of

The strong women

Who have shaped me,

Built me from a foundation

Made of resilience and absolute

Sovereignty.

I realize

It is my job

To build, brick by brick,

Upon this foundation for

The next girl who is worried

About the response

Her voice will bring.

I breathe.

I think.

I open my mouth

And the space in front of me

Is filled with my voice.

Proud.

A woman's voice

That sounds like

Alice

Elizabeth

My mother

Malala

Aunt Stacey

Grandma Deb

Rosa

Michelle.

But also,

It sounds

Like

Me.

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