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.