The world is not allowed to make a meal of you, girl. It is there for your consuming. - Nikita Gill

How dare you tell me 'I am not like most girls,'
when those 'girls' you refer to
are my sisters and mothers, my friends,
the very solace and the kindness I have sought
when the worst things in my life have happened?

How dare you assume
I should take that as a compliment,
and beam at you like it is praise
when you are alienating me
from the very core
of my proudly female being?

There are a thousand ways
to tell me you love me,
and making my sisters small
to make me big
isn't one of them.

Tell me you love me, but not because I am different.

Tell me you love me, just because you do.

Softer memories once lived there.
Where there is now burning.
Where there is now blood.

That was where childhood held you.
Instead there is a forgetting.
Instead there is a fireflood.

You have never forgotten how home was more
than just a language you grew inside your mouth
before you said it in a way your tongue bled.

When it lived as a place
outside of your body and more
than just in your heart and head.

Where you once taught your children
how to speak and walk and sang them
lullabies till they fell asleep in their beds.

How it has become a legend,
just a holy story you pass from
praying hands to praying hands.

Where once you built hallowed walls
there is now simply scorched earth
and bloodied sands.

A memory of the scared land
that it once was before your whole world
was set completely to flames

How your heart breaks everyday
because home, home no longer remembers
how to say your name.

Home was your refuge, and I wish they would see.
because after cruelly taking it from you,
they call you refugee.

Listen to me, girl,
you have castles inside your bones,
coronets in your heart,
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war,
the last time I checked,
Queens cower before no man.