We want to serve our country.
We want to stand up and fight.
We want to be recognized as the ones,
Who go all for what is right.

Pushed aside, Unwanted and Belittled,
The more rights we gain, more are torn down,
Every time we try and stand for ourselves,
We get told to put on our "pretty little gown."

Women. Seen as a dependent.
Someone who cannot handle the game,
cannot handle the war.
Forced to sit the bench of almost freedom.

We must pretend to be someone we aren't,
We are forced to stay behind,
Why can't be recognized,
like the others of mankind?

I plan.
plan out all the **** I want to say to you.

I tell myself, Next time.
Next time say it.

Every time, I don't.
I don't say what I want to say.

*I am a failure

She once thought she was strong,
She once believed she could take it all.

She sat, picking flowers,
giving them to her Mama,
as a sign of happiness and love.

She pranced through the halls,
in her long flow-y gown,
being told she could be whatever she wanted.

She became the little tom boy, with her hat on backwards.
She ran 'round with her brother and friends,
and used him as her role model.

As she grew older, she realized...
She was more like her brother than she expected.
But she's not alone.

He was alone.
He envies what she has,
What he lacked.

She realizes the mistakes,
The terrible things she should've stopped,
and the things she never started.  

He had no one,
She has two.
He told nobody,
She told few.
He was secretive,
but she knew.

She once thought she was strong,
She once believed she could take it all...
she once thought she could give up.

She reminds herself, He didn't.
He had no one, but he stayed strong.

He survived. She tells herself,
*So can you.

Mama, Why am I going with this strange man?
For your safety, my dear
But Mama, he scares me, he's hurt me, everywhere, I don't feel safe
Oh honey, It's okay. It's what all girls do.
But-but...I love you, I love Papa, I don't wanna leave you.
It is your duty, child, we need the money. If you love us, go.

The conversation runs through her head,
over and over the broken record plays.

Broken.
Innocence of a child, lost.
Lost in the broken glass.
Shards tear at the skin,
Making sure she never forgets.

Hope is pushed into her life,
Freedom is near*, she thinks.
glass shatters
He knocked over another vase,
Another rock was thrown through the window.
Another piece of her life, came crashing down.

Down...Down...Down.
As soon as she believes,
Believes in what could have been,
What should be lived...
glass shatters.*

Glass shards, impossible to mend.
The shattering, the damage,
Hopeless to rectify,
Hopeless to continue.