I would Choose

An Entry for WoLF’s Letters to Girls

By K.T.

Dear Girls of the World,

I hope the world is kinder to you, than it was to the women before you.

I hope you do not inherit our swallowed words, silenced cries and fear dressed up as caution.

But if you have, remember this.

Remember the women that came before you, who carried whole lives through fire and still found something tender to give.

Remember that they tried to make us smaller, quieter and easier to love,

But we continued to grow wild.

I would still choose to be a woman, in every lifetime.

Not because womanhood
has been gentle, kind or understanding but because women.

There is something in us all that has survived every attempt to bury it.

So, girls of the world, be difficult when you must, be soft when you want and love fiercely (but never at the cost of disappearing)

And if the world ever teaches you
to wish you were something else, remember this.

I knew the price of being a girl

I knew our herstory and I knew the wounds.

BUT I would still choose to be a woman in every lifetime.

I would still choose you, us and me.