Girls will be girls
they’ll sing and dance
so boys can’t help but grab
girls right in their underpants

Girls will be girls
they’ll flirt and sass
but they never ****
‘cause they aren’t crass

Girls will be girls
they’ll study hard
to ****** the boys
who’ll mow the yard

Girls will be girls
they’ll say no and stop
but we won’t believe them:
the boys are cops!

Girls will be girls
they’ll cook and clean
and raise the kids
but must stay lean

Girls will be girls
they’ll work all day
and take home just part
of what boys are paid

Girls will be girls
they’ll talk and chat
but then get hysterical
when boys call them fat

Girls will be girls
they’ll wear nice dresses
and never soil them
wiping up boys’ messes

Girls will be girls
they’ll run and vote
while boys drink beer
and win and gloat

Girls will be girls
and we know what that means:
they must always smile
and never scream

Girls will be girls
so let’s hope and pray
that girls are girls enough to save
this ****** up world
we boys have made.

I sat down yesterday,
Feeling sorry for myself.
Lamenting in my sorrow,
Figuring out a good way to say
The words that have been swirling
Around in my mind like
The way water revolves around a
Drain.

I sit down now today,
Thinking about the way I cope
I go through other people’s lives
With a keen eye.
Like a detective trying to
Determine a killer with nothing
More than a fleck of dust and a
Motive.

I sat there yesterday,
Trying to determine why my fears
Felt as if they were consuming me.
Like the way the darkness
Envelops you in a cold blanket
When all you need is
Someone to keep you
Warm.

I’m sitting here today,
Wishing for more control
More edge, more confidence.
A will to stand my ground
To accept who I truly am,
A talented, wonderful woman
Who is effortlessly
Beautiful.

I remember the times
That I feel sorry for myself.
They fuel me. Feed my fire.
Fill me with every inch of desire.
To be great. To be successful.
To be me. To be the woman
I know I am, rather than
The girl I pretend to be.

Take my gold and frisk my crown
          Pull jewels from my neck and scrub the expensive oils from my skin
          Burn the fine linens and strip me of my silks
I have no need for such trivialities.

     Turn your face from me and harden your heart
           Cast me out from my home, my sanctuary
           I shall die in a shelter rather than a palace, but all the same,
I shall be just as dead here as there.

     Lose me my birthright, my title and my throne
           Change the name on the scroll of the fate I was born for
           Sell your right-hand seat to the prettiest bidder
I will die knowing I would not sell out.

     You, the one I held in my foolish heart so dear,
          Can take away from me everything I gave you
          But you cannot take the strength with which I was born, for
I represent the one virtue you cannot own.

     Replace me if you must but know that I will lie in peace
           Forget me if your heart allows it, but never forget
           That I-- the woman who dares defy the king--
I hold more power in my will than you have in your court.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

My boyfriend used to take me to Pizza ****
(as we always called it)
after every home basketball game.
We'd fill up on bread sticks,
box the leftover slices,
just so they could sit in the back seat
of his green Chevy jeep
while we made out in the parking lot
with Eric Church's new CD on the stereo.

I told everyone the bruises on my thighs
were just an accident,
when really he pushed me
into the tires
after he had a few or dozen beers
at the party down Bear Run.
He never did like being told
what he shouldn't do.

We'd lay down the seats
and sleep on sweatshirts
with a cooler lid for a pillow
until 10a.m. on a Sunday,
an hour late for mass.
Silently we'd ride
until we'd reach the power plant.
He'd cough and I'd sigh,
quietly singing until we'd reach my driveway.
He never did kiss me
whenever he'd drop me off.

I came back spring break
the following year.
The jeep in his yard with a for sale sign
propped against the hood
and his cell number
written in blue window chalk
just above the windshield wipers.
I saw his little sister
peek behind the curtain
when I knocked on the door,
but no one came to answer.
So I lit a cigarette and drove home
listening to "Springsteen."