I weigh the sea I weigh the storm I weigh a thousand stories long. I weigh my mother's fortitude and my father's eyes I weigh the way they look at me… - Nikita Gill

When I was a little girl and my teachers sent notes home complaining
that I was as loud as the boys, that it wasn't lady like for a girl
to be this outspoken, this raucous, instead of forcing me to tone it down
to the timber of a stage whisper, just a few notes above a whimper
you took me by the hand to the hilltop by our house,
told me to use my voice by shouting to my heart's content,
told me never to forget that I was a girl not a mouse
and if I believed I had to change myself to suit anyone else I shouldn't
that no matter what they said my voice was so important.
You then visited my school, called a meeting with my teachers
sat them all down and said that you were raising a rebel girl
to be a warrior woman, and if she could not speak,
the same way boys are allowed to, if she had to turn her voice into sighs
then how will she utter the battle cries that were needed when her warrior sisters
called upon her to help them defend the daughters of this world.

Her mother told her
she could grow up to be
anything she wanted to be,
so she grew up to become
the strongest of the strong,
the strangest of the strange,
the wildest of the wild,
the wolf leading the wolves.

All the darkness of the night
is no match for a single candle
that refuses to die out.