Warning: naughty language.

~

When I was five, I wished I was born a man.

As a long-haired munchkin, in a sea of grownup legs,
I once clung to a pant trunk that I had mistaken for my father’s.
They all looked the same,
Solid, Simple, Black.
No drama. No hair to fix.
No question about which dress made you look less fat.

I envied these fuzzy “quick decision wizards,”
standing tall above “small decision binds.”

I idolized their boundary ease,
Impeccable with the word “No.”
Never afraid to step into the ring of life.
Rising above emotions to get the job done.
Disciplined. Strong. Responsible.

While my hazel eyes cried most days, and thought rain drops were the world weeping.
Scared. Sensitive. Unsure.

Even still, the freedom of being a little girl felt fun.
Exciting,
like waiting in the ocean for the perfect wave to “trust fall ride” all the way back to shore.
Cartwheeling through front yard grass and illegally picking wildflower bouquets for my dad.
Flowing in faith through a tender-eyed, wonder world.

My dear beloved men,
I’m sorry my five-year-old innocence thought you had it easy.

In our current age of the “strong woman,”
I am free to rediscover and express my masculinity.
Patriarchy celebrates getting punched in my resting bitch face,
Stoic, unafraid to get back up and in.
My masculinity gets shit done and stands in the center of the fire, unaffected by haters.
They call me a beast, a badass, and a bitch, because most days, “I wish a mother fucker would,”
as I protect my people with both my middle fingers up.

But I still get to cry,
Doors are opened for me through voracious vulnerability, that I freely display,
because it comes naturally.
My brokenness is not a fault or a failure, but a rose with a million thorns,
an epic tale of feisty Cinderella ambition, that still needs saving, but I can also save myself.

You, my dear men, have a fight to reclaim.
Our culture touts your femininity,
as weakness.
“Man Up.”
Don’t let your guard down, the science proves you will not attract a mate.

And we are all suffering,
In a paradigm that sees our collective feminine as fragile,
When it will claw your eyes out, if you fuck with our children.

We need all sides,
Regardless of our birthed gender sentences.
It is our duty to say hello and squeeze hospitable arms around our masculine and feminine faces,
with equal ferocity.
Balance is an act.
A constant “in-flux seesaw.”

My beloved men,
I see you.
I fight beside you and with you.
I love you.
We’ve got this.
Let’s reclaim the “shit” out of our feminine paradigm,
so we can all bask in “little girl sprinkler jumping” liberating freedom.

~